By The Book
by greenstuff2
Summary: Molly is almost 25 and on the shelf when someone comes into her life ...
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: All rights to the main characters belong to Tony Grounds and the BBC.

 **A/N: This is totally AU, with a twenty something Molly who is very, very streetwise but who has a wide vulnerable streak. It's with a lot of trepidation that I'm publishing this, because it's a very far cry from my usual "as near to real life as I can get it" with a "healthy dose of romance" stuff. The first chapter is all about Molly's life and the whole thing is in the first person singular, i.e., Molly's thoughts and actions and is designed to be a bit tongue in cheek, a bit of fun which I thought I'd like to have a go at. I hope you enjoy it.**

 **OGOGOGOG**

My name is Molly, Molly Dawes, but my friends call me Molls and I'm 24, well nearer 25 actually and I'm on the bleeding shelf, well according to me Mum and me Nan I am. In our family we go in for getting married and having kids when we're young, not necessarily in that order, and they're very disappointed in me. My little sister Bella is already married and has a kid, and Jade has a kid as well, although she's not married. I've got a boyfriend, at least that's what I call him, but most of my friends call him that shit, or the knob, or in the case of me best mate Cherry, the F.A., the second word of which is arsehole, so I'll let you work out what the first one is for yourselves.

I work as a PR girl for a smallish publishing business, and I'd be the first to admit that I'm not the best PR girl in the world. I find a lot of it very embarrassing and I'm a shit liar, which doesn't help, but my job's okay because most of what I do is at book signings, where I'm the spare part that keeps the queue in order when some author, usually one of the shit ones that no-one's ever heard of, is autographing copies of their book. That's always supposing there is a queue cos it gets bleeding embarrassing sometimes if no-one shows up, or the people shopping in the store don't give a toss about the book or the author and just tut cos we're in their way then walk past. Sometimes I get the dedications sorted for the mostly big-headed prats that we handle so that I can tell him or her who to address it to and what to write, saves them having to talk to the 'peasants' themselves, all they have to do then is scribble and smile. I suppose I'm lucky to have this job, I weren't the best at school, and I kind of fell into it when I was temping here one summer a few years back and I sort of stayed on.

My boyfriend's name is Steve and I know he's not that brilliant as boyfriends go and I know I should probably dump him, well that's what all my mates tell me, especially Cherry. He might not be the best boyfriend in the world, but he's better than nothing and I'll never get off the bleeding shelf if I'm too fussy will I? Actually sometimes I think I might love him, well a bit, I'm not sure because I don't always like him very much but that's a whole different ball bag. He's trying to be one of them paparazzi, going round taking pictures of celebrities and people who are hanging out with people they shouldn't be, but I think that's mainly because he can't keep a proper job, so he hangs around a lot outside nightclubs and posh restaurants up west. I don't think he's very good at it, but he's just started out and he says it's going to take time to be recognised as one of the best, or even to sell any of his pictures to one of the big boys. Cherry says that that's no excuse for him treating me the way he does, not turning up sometimes and sponging off me, and a couple of times he's gone chasing off after some 'lead' leaving me to find my own way home, but I don't really mind that much, like I said I think I might love him. I certainly fancy him, well most of the time I do, because he's quite good looking.

Cherry works at the same place as I do, but she's got a proper PR job, interviews all the famous writers and then does those articles for the Sunday papers and posh magazines and doesn't do book signings. We've been friends ever since we got plastered together at the end of my first week working here.

We was trying to decide whether we should go up west or stay local when she asked me where Steve was and then said something about wondering whose life he was trying to make a misery of tonight. She said she wanted to know where he was so that we could go in the opposite direction, and as usual when Cherry attacks him I feel like I have to stick up for him, even if I agree with her sometimes. She said she couldn't understand what anyone in their right mind could see in him and that she'd always thought I was sane, except that she couldn't think what I thought I was doing, going out with him.

"He makes me feel…"

"Sick? Yeah, he makes me feel sick as well" Cherry interrupted me before I could finish what I was going to say.

"No, stop being so bloody mean, he makes me feel, I dunno really, sort of special"

"Bollocks. Are you nuts?" She was beginning to sound like she was getting really annoyed with me "This is me you're talking to, not your mother. How the hell can he make you feel anything, let alone special? He doesn't deserve someone like you, Molls, and you certainly don't deserve an arsehole like him" I love Cherry to bits, as I said she's my best mate, but I wish she'd remember that the bloke she's slagging off is the one I wish would propose to me.

As usual we opt for a couple in the pub round the corner while we make a decision about the rest of our evening, so an hour later we're still in ' _The Mucky Duck'_ and it's heaving and we're no closer to making a decision about what we want to do than we were when we were still at work. It's the nearest boozer to our office and to a lot of other offices as well, and as its Friday youcan'tget anywhere near the bar because there are so many people trying to fit in as many drinks as they can before they catch their train home to Kent or Essex or wherever. One thing is that there's no chance of Steve being anywhere near here, no-one famous in their right mind would think of drinking in _"The Duck"._

Being just about five foot tall is a bit of a problem when you're trying to push your way to the front of a scrum round a bar, the bar staff only seemed to see the tall people waving twenty pound notes over my head and shouting, so it took a bit of time until I finally managed to get served. Then I had to put my change in my purse, try to grab hold of my keys that I'd put on the bar while I was paying and carry two glasses, a lager and a red wine, through the rugby scrum to get back to where Cherry was waiting.

It weren't MY fault!

Someone gave me a shove as I turned round to push my way through, and I spilt most of the sodding lager all down the jeans of the bloke standing next to me at the bar. He'd moved back slightly and turned to make space for me to leave, and he was now wearing Cherry's lager from his crotch down both his legs to his feet.

"Shit"

"Indeed"

He spoke in one of those really nice sort of upper crust voices, you know, public schoolboy type but deep and smooth and silky and he didn't look anything like a schoolboy. He looked totally bleeding gorgeous and as I looked up towards his face and it was a long way up cos he's very tall, instead of at his crotch, which made me want to giggle because he looks like he's peed himself, he's got muscles where every bloke should have muscles, dark curly hair and lovely big brown eyes. I'm sure he'd be even better looking if he smiled, but I can see that he's not very amused, hasn't seen the funny side of it at all.

"Sorry"

I was trying hard to stop the giggle that was bubbling up inside me, I wouldn't think it was funny if someone dumped a half pint down me making it look like I'd wet myself, but I was having a hard job controlling it. I always want to giggle when I'm nervous and the way he was looking at me was making me nervous.

"Let me help you"

Not only bloody gorgeous but a gentleman as well. I was going to get another beer for Cherry before I went back to her, but sod it I decided that she can have my wine as he's clearing a path for me to get out of the scrum and I'd feel like I was being rude if I told him to hang on a bit while I wait to be served all over again, which, if the first time was anything to go by, could take a while. I would have offered to mop him up with some of the paper napkin things off the bar, but I wasn't sure he'd think that was funny either.

I'd just started filling Cherry in on what had happened when he appeared with my keys in one hand, shit, I hadn't realised that I'd left them behind, and half a lager in the other. He didn't say anything to me just handed them over, then nodded at Cherry and said that it was nice to see her again. She squeaked something and went very red, as he turned and walked away and I saw several people looking sideways at the tall bloke with the dark hair who'd apparently peed himself.

"God how embarrassing, I've got to get out of here" Cherry threw my wine down her throat and collected her stuff, obviously about to do a runner without waiting for me.

"Bloody hell, you kept him quiet, where did you find him?"

"He's not a boyfriend you plank, chance would be a fine thing, no, that's CJ, you know Charlie James, wrote that bestseller about being a soldier and fighting in Afghanistan?"

"Never heard of him"

"Of course you have, everybody's heard of him, he's been all over the papers and the chat shows and breakfast tele, and everyone's been going on about him all week at work, he wrote that thing about fighting the Taliban which was a bestseller in the States and we're handling the launch here and they're going to make a film out of it and then there's his second one which hasn't been released yet. I've spent the last few days doing his PR with him and now this" She shook her head "I suppose it's just as well that the 'effing arsehole', Cherry don't use the 'f' word as much as I do, isn't here with all his mates, or there'd be a photo in the Sun tomorrow of the war hero who peed himself in the pub"

"Just as well it was the beer then and not the red wine, he'd have looked like he'd got a disease"

I know, I know, it wasn't funny, well not for him anyway, but me and Cherry were now the one's in danger of wetting ourselves as the funny side of it hit us and we hung onto each other and cracked up outside _The Duck_. It was a bit unlucky that the subject of our hysterics should choose that moment to leave the pub with his mate and for the two of them to stand there trying to hail a cab, not that easy when you look like you're pissed enough to wet yourself. The look he gave me showed that he didn't think it was any funnier now than he did a while ago.

I think it might be a bloody good thing that I don't get to work with the meal ticket authors, as we call them, the ones that get interviewed on chat shows or for the Sunday Times and that I don't do book signings with proper authors that sell lots of titles.


	2. Chapter 2

Okay, so some bastard has parked their bloody Range Rover in my space, just what I need on a wet Monday morning. I know I've only got a rusty old Nova that's held together with duct tape and string, but it's mine and I've had to fight long and hard to get a space in the staff car park. As soon as someone more senior to me is appointed I lose it again and then have to wait till someone else leaves to get it back and in the meantime I have to find somewhere out on the street, preferably somewhere without a sodding meter which I have to keep running out to feed all day, but there hasn't been anyone new for ages, well not that I know of anyhow.

"Is he in yet?" I'm standing with one hand on the handle of Geoffrey's office as I prepare to go bowling in to whinge very loudly, that is MY parking space for fuck's sake.

"Yes, but Molly you can't just go …." Jane, who's Geoffrey's right hand woman, or so she keeps telling us, was flushed and flustered and almost yelling at me, which isn't like her, she normally doesn't give a shit.

I ignored her and pushed the door open because it didn't occur to me that he might be having a meeting at this time of the morning, it's unheard of because most of the staff won't show up for at least another hour or so.

"Geoff, some dickhead with one of them 'Chelsea Tractors' has nicked my parking space, although why the fuck anyone would want to drive one of them in London, I don't know, but I had to park bleeding miles away on a sodding meter"

"Hello again" Oh shit, what the fuck's he doing here and at this time of the morning, hasn't he got a breakfast show to appear on or something? "That'd be me, I'm sorry, I didn't know"

I hadn't realised there was anyone else in Geoff's office as I turned round and came face to, well not exactly face to face because he's sitting down, more sort of face to kneecap, and I could feel myself getting all hot and going red. I'd just called him a name, insulted his choice of car and sworn like a bloody trooper, as Nan would say, and what was worse he wasn't there on his own. There was this blonde girl sitting next to him as he lounged back in the chair, one ankle resting on the other knee, all relaxed and comfortable with a big smirk on his face, so laid back he was almost horizontal and he didn't look in the least bit sorry. I was pretty sure he could see that I was dead embarrassed, arrogant prick.

"Have you two met already?"

"Yeah, sort of"

I was praying that Geoff wouldn't ask about it, the last thing I wanted to do was tell him all about the beer and the incontinence issue with the company's latest meal ticket, so I smiled at CJ hoping he wouldn't say nothing. It might have been a weak sort of smile, after all I felt like I was in a bit of difficulty here, but I was right about his smile, he's got a lovely one which made his eyes crinkle and my knees go a bit wobbly, bloody hell he's good looking, and what's even better is that he obviously isn't gonna say anything about me giving him a shower in lager and then me and Cherry pissing ourselves laughing.

"Have you met Chantal?"

"No"

She would be called something like that wouldn't she? Except her name is probably Chardonnay or Cheryl and she most likely comes from Essex. What I do know is that I don't need to waste any time getting to know her, I hate her already. She must have bags of time in the mornings to get her hair blown dry like that and her bloody make up done, not to mention her manicure, except I bet those nails are acrylic, and she's obviously got legs that go all the way up to her chin, I can see she's tall even though she's sitting down and she's got her hand on his thigh. What's that about? A keep-off sign? She makes me feel like a bloody dwarf that someone squished and very scruffy.

"Chantal is CJ's agent" Oh, is that what they're calling it these days?

"Hello" Okay, so I was wrong about Essex, not with that marble in her gob.

"Hello, nice to meet you" I lied as I put my hand out ready to shake hers but she bloody ignored it, rude cow, and left me waving my hand around in the fresh air, so I can see straight away that we're probably not going to be best mates.

"I'm glad you're here Molly, I was just going to get Jane to find you, we were talking about the book signings at the weekend, about the arrangements"

What the hell's he on about? Poor sod, he's obviously got me confused with someone else, I don't have anything to do with book signings for meal ticket authors, I belong in the deep end of the pond with the bottom-feeders and the also ran's.

"Geoff, I don't think….."

"It'll be good experience for you and it's time you moved on a bit" Geoff smiled, looking a bit uncomfortable, as if he's just realised that he might have got the wrong person.

"But Geoff…."

"If you have a problem with it being at the weekend, we'll talk about it later" Suddenly he was every inch the bloke in charge and unless I want a change of career it might be best to shut up, so I shook my head at him.

What exactly will be the good experience Geoff? Working all weekend with Charlie " _I'm so_ _cool"_ James, the bloody war hero and doing it without any paid overtime? I never heard money mentioned once. And is Chardonnay, sorry Chantal, gonna be there? And does this mean that everyone more senior than me has already turned it down for some reason? No chance, not with him looking the way he does, even if he was some raving pervert or something, I'll bet they'd all be queuing up to do it, so I presume that good old Geoffrey has just royally screwed up. I wonder what waitresses earn?

I caught sight of Cheryl, sorry Chantal's, face and saw how she was bloody fuming, you could almost see the smoke coming out of her ears, so I smiled and said I'd love to do it and how I was really looking forward to it. I haven't actually got a lot of choice, I need my job, but looking at Geoff's face I think even he might feel that I'd just gone a little bit over the top, but I don't think waitressing pays nearly enough. Besides I haven't got the patience you need to serve people who can't decide what they want to eat or the late night drunks. I think Charlie _"war hero"_ James saw straight through me, I'm sure he knows that I only said it to wind his girlfriend up, because I saw him start smirking then look down and bite his lip to stop his grin getting even more obvious.

Steve's going to be delirious; I think he said something about doing something on Sunday.

OGOGOGOGOGOG

Three o'clock and I've been standing here since ten o'clock this morning and I'm hungry, I'm thirsty, I'm dying for a pee, my feet are bloody killing me, my face aches from smiling and I'm bored shitless. On top of all that, there are still about a million people queuing up to get him to sign their copy of his bloody book. We had a half hour break for lunch, at least he did, I had to spend the time sourcing some more copies of the sodding thing, because we was running out and I'm sick of the sight of it now, as sick as I am of the sight of women who are older than my mum drooling all over him. I have no clue what I'm doing here, cos apart from handing out copies of the book so that people can get him to sign it for them and then, more importantly, pointing them to the cash desk so they can pay for it, I've got sod all to do.

One thing it has made me do is appreciate my usual signings where we think six people is a big queue and twelve's a massive crowd; but at least the authors get as bored as I do when they don't have hundreds of people queuing up so we often have nice long chats, not to mention the occasional cups of tea or coffee. There's been none of that today, he hasn't said a bleeding word to me for hours, mind you he's had a lot of books to sign so he hasn't had a lot of time to do anything else. I had no idea that so many people would be willing to queue for so long to get someone to sign something, or maybe it's more to do with getting him to smile at them. Selfies aren't allowed, there's a big sign up to say so, although I don't know what I'd do if someone decided to take one, look the other way probably, otherwise his smile muscle would ache worse than mine does. He doesn't smile at me much; well not at all in fact, I think he might still be a bit pissed at me for the other night. On the other hand he doesn't show any sign of getting fed up either, mind you he is sitting down and he's had lunch and a drink and he more than likely had time for a pee as well.

Four o'clock and Cheryl, sorry Chantal, has just pitched up, wonder what took her so long? Although, to be fair she knew he couldn't get up to anything earlier, not when he was trapped here with all these middle-aged women, but she obviously doesn't trust him to go straight home after. To give him his due he didn't look too thrilled to see her, but I can forget any ideas I had about going for a drink when we'd finished, just to make up for the other night you understand.

Almost five o'clock and half an hour ago I put up a barrier to stop any more people joining the queue, so thank fuck we're almost done. I'm bleeding knackered and I've got to do it all over again tomorrow so I'm going to get pretty used to this bit of carpet.

"Tired?"

I am sure I could find a bit of energy from somewhere if he keeps on talking to me using that tone of voice. I forgot all about Chardonnay for a second, until she put her hand on his arm, God, why doesn't she put some shackles on him and have done with it? She whispered something about the need to get off because of some plans they've got for the evening and she managed to whisper it just loud enough for me to hear, as if I give a fuck what they're doing tonight.

Tired? Me? No, course not, just bloody hungry and thirsty, and more than a bit knackered, but at least I'm not dying for a pee any more, I took advantage of Cheryl turning up to desert my post for a bit, but God my sodding feet ache. Okay, so I didn't say any of that out loud to him, I wasn't going to give her the satisfaction.

"No, I'm fine"

I smiled sweetly, or as sweetly as I could bearing in mind that I hate everyone right now "Just got to clear this lot away then we're done" I pointed to all the signs and name things and barriers 'n that, and the carafe and the glass of water, it was alright for him, obviously he wasn't going to die of thirst, and the boxes of his bloody book which need putting away in the cupboard ready to do it all over again tomorrow morning.

"Do you need any help?"

"No that's alright"

Yes, of course I could use some help, you smug bastard, if you take one of those boxes and your girlfriend, sorry, your _agent,_ takes another we can all get off home, or is she scared she might break one of her false nails "I'll see you bright and early tomorrow morning"

"Well if you're sure"

He sounds amused as if he's trying very hard not to laugh and there's nothing funny from where I'm standing, so why do I get the feeling that Charlie _"I'm so smooth"_ James is laughing at me?

With that they push off leaving me to tidy up and put all the stuff away on my own. I feel just like Cinderella, except that the Prince has just pissed off with one of the ugly sisters.

OGOGOGOGOG

 **Author's notes: Thank you for your reviews, I'm glad that you enjoyed it.**

 **I know I had got into the habit of giving you a preview of the next chapter, but in this case I think it might spoil it, so I think I'll pass, but if you prefer a hint of what's coming next, please tell me.**


	3. Chapter 3

I had a bit of a bonus when I was on my way home, cos Steve rang me on my mobile and asked me to meet him up west for a drink, not for a meal I noticed so it looks like he's broke and wants me to pay again, that'll make a nice change, _**not,**_ so I got off the bus at the next stop and made my way across Soho to meet him. God, I love Soho, I'd love to be able to live there, to afford it I mean, okay not in the more seedy bits, I don't want to be mistaken for a prostitute every time I go to Tesco, but it's so alive with crowds of people buzzing about and so exciting somehow.

Steve is waiting for me outside the pub, and I can't help wondering if that's so he can blag the drinks off me when we get inside, but I don't really mind because I haven't seen him for nearly a week and I always forget just how good looking he is. I used to think he was the best looking bloke I've ever seen, well apart from George Clooney, oh and Jonny Depp and people like that on films, but now I reckon he's not as good looking as Charles _"I took the Taliban on single handed"_ James. But Steve'll do for me and at least he hasn't got hordes of middle aged women drooling all over him and hanging on his every word or some toffee nosed tart hanging off his other bits and looking down her nose at me.

The evening went pretty much as usual, with me paying for the drinks and a burger each. I was actually pretty brassic just like him, so it's a real pity there wasn't any overtime with this gig otherwise we could have had a proper dinner, when his mobile rang and he went haring off to join all the other sharks outside some restaurant, leaving me to trail behind like a spare part again.

I stood a fair bit back from the mob as they crowded round all pushing and shoving each other out of the way, Steve in the middle of it, as some people came out of the restaurant, and I heard a voice straight out of my worst bleeding nightmare, calling them pond scum and trying to force a way through to help a couple of girls get into this taxi that was waiting. I last saw one of the girls a few hours ago walking away from a book signing without helping me clear up, but I didn't recognise the other one or the bloke with her who seemed to be the one they was focusing on and I wished like anything that I didn't recognise the bloke who'd spoken.

I tried to turn and sort of casually stroll away without drawing any attention to myself but I was too late, he'd seen me. He looked at me with his eyebrows raised and an expression on his face like he'd got a really bad taste in his mouth. Shit and I've got to work with him again all day tomorrow.

OGOGOGOGOGOG

"Just tell him then"

"I tried, Cherry, I really tried but he don't believe me and then he wouldn't listen anymore"

"It's your own fault for hanging around with dickheads like Steve arsehole Wilkins"

"Thanks, that really helps a lot"

Sunday's book signing was even more of a bleeding nightmare than Saturday's and that's saying something. Not only was I standing there like a spare part most of the day, but Charlie _we have a situation here_ James was blaming me for the fucking disaster with Steve and his mates outside the restaurant. He asked me what I was doing there so I told him the truth, even though it was none of his sodding business. I told him that I'd been having a drink with my boyfriend when he'd got the call to go the restaurant, and that I'd tagged along and that I had nothing to do with any of it, so he asked me my boyfriend's name, and I told him, it's not a bloody secret. He looked right down his snooty nose as he showed me an article in the Mail on Sunday with Steve's name all over it for taking a photo of some geezer that I've never heard of with some blonde I've never heard of either. I was really pleased for Steve, looks like this could be his big break, but I thought it might be best not to say, I don't think Charlie _this can't be a coincidence_ James is too impressed.

I tried to tell him that it wasn't me that tipped them off, I didn't know anything about where he and his mates were going to eat or even who these people are for fuck's sake, but he said that Chantal had admitted that she may have let it slip, well she probably did, but not to me the lying cow. By the time we was finished on Sunday, and another thousand women, and maybe a couple of men, had drooled all over him, he wasn't speaking to me at all, well to be fair I wasn't exactly chatting to him either, so I was really pleased to get away and get home.

OGOGOGOGOG

I wasn't so pleased when I got to work Monday morning and Geoff called me in to say that instead of a CJ free life which I had been banking on, I was going to do a tour with him. Geoff said he was really pleased with how the signings had gone, probably he was mostly pleased with the number of books we'd managed to flog, and he couldn't see any reason to change things. Normally I'd have been chuffed to nuts, but this felt as if it could be a bit tricky.

"I can't, he bloody hates me" Geoff was starting to get a bit ratty with me cos I kept saying I didn't want to do anything else with Charlie _I'm so_ _bleeding perfect_ James.

"Don't be ridiculous, Molly, he asked for you specially"

"Did he?" I wasn't sure I believed him, it sounded like a bucket load of bullshit to me, "Most likely cos he hasn't finished torturing me yet"

"Now you're just being silly, it's part of your job and if you want to keep your job, you're going to do the tour. He's important to this business, so go and get the details from Jane"

Okay, I get the bleeding message, what you mean is that he's important and I'm not. The trouble is I don't want to tell Geoff about the pub and Steve 'n all that, I don't think he'll believe that I'm innocent any more than CJ does, so it looks like I'm on a bloody train to Scotland in a couple of days for a book tour with you know who. Oh Jesus, I hope Miss Glamour on, what do you call them sticks what you walk on? Oh, I know, Stilts, aint coming too, cos that would be the final bloody straw.

OGOGOGOGOGOG

"Are you going to sulk all the way to Edinburgh?"

I can hear the laugh in his voice as I turn and take a quick peep at him sitting opposite me; God, he's attractive when he smiles. And he's right, I am sulking. I'm still bloody furious with him because he accused me of something I didn't do and then wouldn't believe me when I tried to explain. I just shrugged and pretended to be really interested in the view out of the window, which is what I've been doing ever since we left Kings Cross. Four and a half hours of this could get pretty boring, but at least he's left Cheryl behind at home…..

"Come on Molly, let's call a truce, if I say I'm sorry then you can stop pretending to be fascinated by grotty suburbs" He was still laughing at me "It's a bloody long way to Edinburgh and it'd be much more fun if you'd talk to me"

"What do you wanna talk about?" Fun? He thinks this could be fun? What is he on? And he didn't say what he's sorry about? I know I still sound a bit grumpy, but I don't want him to think that I'm a complete pushover for some posh bloke with a nice smile, even if I am beginning to think that I might be.

"I don't know, how about that boyfriend of yours?"

"Steve? What do you wanna talk about him for? Anyway, he's not my boyfriend, we're engaged"

Oh, fuckety shit what the hell made me say that? It's just that Charlie _let's be civilised_ James makes me feel very unsettled, all sort of churned up, and I hate it that I feel like such a loser, it's as though he's laughing at me all the time. Talk about tempting fate, though, Steve's never gonna propose now, so I'm never gonna please Mum and Nan.

"Congratulations, I didn't know you were engaged"

Neither did I, not till just now anyhow, and Steve certainly doesn't know. I'm not sure whether CJ believes me, cos I know I'm a shit liar and he sounds a bit, I dunno, dubious, so I feel like I should tell him the truth, but I don't know what to say without making myself look like a complete prannet. I definitely don't want to talk about Steve that's for sure, so I need to change the subject but I can't think of anything to talk about, until I have this brainwave.

"So, what was it like in Afghanistan?"

"I take it you haven't read my book then?" Bugger, he sounds like he's gonna laugh again, the bastard.

"Yes I have" Well, I read the bit about the author anyhow, that he's thirty three and comes from Bath and that he's single, that he went to Eton, then Oxford, no wonder he speaks proper, and he wrote the book when he was recovering from being shot, and that he had to leave the army after, but apart from that, I'm sorry but it's not my sort of thing.

"Which bit?"

Oh shit, I don't know and I don't know what he wants me to say either so I do another one of my weak smiles and pray that he's gonna rescue me again. Luckily he seems to love talking about himself, or maybe just about the army and Afghanistan, and I love listening to his voice, like I said he's got one of them posh, smooth voices that would sound sexy reading a shopping list so I'm more than happy to just sit there without really listening to what he's saying and let it wash over me. I can't help wondering what on earth someone like him is doing with someone like Chardonnay.

When I woke up he was fast asleep, so I hadn't got a scoobie as to how long it had been since I dropped off. I just hoped that I hadn't been snoring or sleeping with my mouth wide open or dribbling. The sun was pouring through the window making it baking hot and I'd been a bit bothered about this trip so I hadn't been sleeping that well, but how could I fall asleep like that? I was worried now that he would think he'd been boring me, either that or I was just plain bloody rude. Mind you, him being asleep meant that I could sit back and look at him without him seeing me and smirking, which he does a lot of and it makes me feel all unsettled. He's even better looking when he's asleep and I can see what Cherry and all those women at the book signings see in him, even Jane gets all flustered and fluttery when he's around and she's as hard as nails, a bit like me actually. They all pretend it's his bravery and him fighting the Taliban and stuff that they're interested in, is it bollocks? I wouldn't mind betting that I'm not the only one who didn't read his book; I bet there are lots of them who just read the blurb about him and then looked at his picture.

I was trying to picture him without the shirt and maybe without the jeans because the way he was sleeping I could see his muscles where his shirt was pulled tight across his chest and it had worked its way up showing a bit of his stomach, when I suddenly realised that he was wide awake and grinning at me. God, how bleeding embarrassing, he'd most likely just seen me checking him out and I don't mean his face….

OGOGOGOGOGOG

We was staying in a hotel in a place called Costorphin, which was right next to the bloody zoo. When I saw where it was I was pretty sure it was Jane's idea of a joke, but actually it was very nice, very posh 'n that. I should imagine it's what he's used to, but I was expecting a Travelodge, cos I know there is one in Edinburgh, so anything better than that would look posh to me. I was a bit bloody worried about what we was going to be doing for the rest of the afternoon and evening, cos apart from finding out where this store is for tomorrow morning, we've got nothing else we have to do and I don't know what the hell we're going to talk about apart from Afghanistan and I think we've about covered that, and Steve, and I don't wanna go there. We could talk about Cheryl I s'pose, but I don't wanna go there either.

In the end we had an early supper, well I would have called it tea, because he was hungry and then we went for a long walk up the Royal Mile to the castle. I had a hard job keeping up with him cos he's got really long legs and he walks very fast and I haven't and I don't. He kept teasing me and calling me a slowcoach and walking backwards, saying I was unfit, cheeky bugger, but then he did keep stopping and waiting for me to catch up so that we didn't get separated. Neither of us have been to Scotland before and I couldn't get over how many tourists there were, mostly Americans as far as I could tell, all blocking the pavement by standing in groups and talking really loudly so that we had to keep walking round them in the road. There were as many, if not more, than you see in London and most of them, men and women, seemed to be dressed in tartan trousers.

It was when we was walking up the hill to the castle that I started to feel a bit awkward about what I should call him, I mean he hasn't said anything about me calling him Charles or Charlie, and it's not like we're here as friends or nothing, but CJ or Mr. James don't sound very friendly somehow. I managed to get away without calling him anything and by the time we was walking back I was so bleeding worn out that I could hardly speak at all, let alone call him anything, I was just concentrating on putting one foot in front of the other. I can't remember the last time I walked so far, or so bloody fast.

OGOGOGOGOG

 **Author's Notes: Glad you are enjoying this, thank you for your reviews, they're great. I've had a lot of fun writing this. I think most of us have told a lie at some point in our lives when we don't want to look like a lonely loser, or maybe it's just me, but not usually such a thumping whopper of a lie …..**

 **For those of you who don't want a spoiler, don't read the next bit.**

Chapter 4 sees their friendship start to build during their second evening in Edinburgh and as they go onto Glasgow….


	4. Chapter 4

"Thanks, I really enjoyed that" I wasn't lying or just being polite, I actually did enjoy it, despite being totally shagged out.

"Liar" Christ, he was bloody laughing at me again.

"Why do you always think the worst of me?" I wasn't really flirting, well maybe only just a very tiny little bit.

"I don't" He'd stopped laughing but was still smiling down at me "I enjoyed it as well"

For a minute it felt a bit strained, a little bit awkward, as though neither of us was too sure what to say next and I had this really funny feeling that he was going to kiss me goodnight, only on the cheek more's the pity, but he didn't.

"Good night, Molly, I'll see you in the morning"

"Good night"

"Charles"

"What?"

"My name, it's Charles"

"Oh yeah, I know, good night Charles"

OGOGOGOGOG

Not even my mum or Nan, in fact none of the people who know me best and who love me, could say I was a happy person in the mornings, well not when I first get up anyhow. I'm okay after breakfast, especially when I can have one of those cereals what are mostly sugar. I know that they're not supposed to be as good for you as those ones that look like hamster food with rat droppings in them but I don't ever fancy eating them.

He looked at my bowl of coco pops, looked up at me and raised his eyebrows, then looked down at my breakfast again. My first thought was that no-body had bloody asked him to come and sit with me, there was plenty of other empty tables, and if he didn't like the sight of my breakfast he could always piss off and sit on one of them. He started to give me the lecture about eating crap and my body being a temple, the same malarkey that Cherry spouts when she's panicking about her weight and on some crappy diet and his body might very well be, but mine will do me as it is, thanks very much. Talking about crap, he was drinking some filthy looking black coffee that looked so bleeding strong I'll bet you could stand the spoon up in it.

"And that stuff's bloody good for you is it?" I copied his eyebrow raising trick.

"I'm not a fully functioning soldier till I've had at least two cups of coffee in the morning"

"I hate to tell you this, Charles, but you're not actually a soldier" As soon as I'd said it, I was sort of a bit sorry. I meant it as a joke, but just for a minute he looked really upset and I was sorry for him; I'd guess he misses the army, so trust me and my big mouth, Molly Dawes subtle as usual.

He picked up a spoon and nicked some of my coco-pops and said as how he hadn't had them for years, probably like most people not since he was six, then he said as how he'd forgotten how good they are.

"Oi, go and get your own" I could see he was trying not to show that I'd put my bloody big foot in it and to smile, and I wanted to hug him and tell him he was being a brave soldier, but he most likely wouldn't have seen the funny side of that either, so I didn't say anything.

OGOGOGOGOG

Whatever thoughts I'd had about the signing being more fun now we'd sort of made friends soon disappeared, it was just as shit as the two in London, maybe even more so cos I couldn't even earwig on people's conversations, I couldn't understand most of what they were saying. After lunch it got even worse cos it got bleeding hot and stuffy in the book department and I started to get a bad case of the yawns. Trying to control it was making my jaw hurt and my eyes water. I couldn't get off to sleep the night before, the nap I'd had on the train meant that I wasn't sleepy when I went to bed and all that exercise and fresh air didn't make a scrap of difference or maybe it was the strange bed or perhaps something else entirely that was keeping me awake, but now I would have given anything to be able to put my head down.

I didn't think he'd noticed. I hadn't seen him looking at me or nothing, but he suddenly said that I should go for a walk outside to get some fresh air and then get a full fat coke to drink because it would help me wake up. I knew I shouldn't because I was here to work, but I also knew that I didn't have to ask him to keep his mouth shut, he wouldn't drop me in it by telling anyone back in the office, I don't know how I knew, I just did.

OGOGOGOGOGOG

Any ideas I had about the evening being a re-run of the one before sort of vanished as soon as we'd finished our tea, or supper as he calls it. We went through to the lounge to have coffee, yuk, tea for me, when he apologised and said he had some calls to make. So he swigged a couple of mouthfuls of coffee, shuddered a bit then whipped out his blackberry and turned it on to check his messages, started chatting and then buggered off, leaving me sitting there with no-one to talk to and nothing to do. Mind you, I'm not his date for the evening am I, so he doesn't have to entertain me. If I'd known what was going to happen though I'd have bought a book down with me, maybe even his, no I wouldn't, that's a lie, but I could have bought a magazine.

I checked my mobile for any messages from my 'fiance', shit, why the hell did I tell such a whopping lie? I'm sort of stuck with it now. Needless to say there was nothing from him, or from anyone else for that matter, so it looks like no-one loves me any more, not even Cherry or my mum, what do they say? Out of sight, out of mind. I decided to ring Steve anyway; I couldn't just sit there on my own looking at the walls, apart from anything else it makes me look like such a loser. I haven't actually spoken to him since his big breakthrough, probably because he's shit scared I'm gonna ask for some of the money back that he owes me now he's sold something, so I half expected to go straight to voice mail. I pinned a smile on my face and was getting my message straight in my head so that anyone watching would think I had a friend to talk to, when he took the wind out of my sails by answering.

He said he was pleased that I'd called, that he'd meant to ring and say sorry for abandoning me in the pub when he got his big break, and had I got back alright? I couldn't help feeling that it was a bit bloody late to be asking that and seeing as how I was now in Scotland, it appeared that I must have. He never said a word about paying me back what he owes me but I didn't have the heart to remind him and spoil the moment cos it's been a long time since he's sounded so pleased to hear from me, mind you there was nothing to stop him calling me. I didn't mention that we'd got 'engaged', it would be a bit difficult to know how to explain it. It's very unlikely that he's gonna meet up with Charlie _war hero_ James anytime soon and in a few days I won't be seeing CJ again either so there really wasn't any need. I asked him about the target that he caught who was out with Charles and Cheryl, and he explained that he was some sort of MOD Afghanistan whistle-blower civil servant type bloke whose wife is an M.P., but who's knocking off his P.A., the blonde who was with him, and who'd been denying it for months. I think it serves him right that he got caught.

I don't know how I'm going to feel about never seeing Charles again, I hadn't considered it before, but now I think that it might be that I'm going to miss him, well a bit anyway. He reappeared when I was on the phone and went to sit down, then realised that I was talking to Steve and waved his hand as he walked off again. He obviously thought that he was giving me some privacy, but all I wanted to do was get shot of Steve as quickly as I could and talk to Charles, to see whether we could maybe go out for a walk again or something.

By the time he came back again it was getting quite late, well too late to go out for a walk anyhow and it was pissing down.

"How is he?"

"Fine thanks" I don't give a fuck actually and I don't want to talk about him, I'm sorry I ever started this, so please can we talk about something else?

"How's Cheryl?" I presumed that one of the messages he got was from her, I can't see her letting him off the hook for too long, especially with me.

"Who?"

"Your agent, Chardonnay, sorry, I mean Chantal, I keep getting her name wrong"

"Of course you do" He was laughing at me again "Her name really is Chantal you know, that's the name on her passport"

"Yeah right" Oh well, as Nan would say, in for a penny, in for a pound "Have you two been together long?

"Too long" I couldn't help smiling at that even though he obviously wasn't going to say anything else about it and changed the subject "I think an early night would be a good idea don't you? Might stop you falling asleep on your feet after lunch tomorrow"

"Sorry, it's a bit bloody boring just standing there all day"

"But you're used to it aren't you? I thought Geoff said you did it all the time"

"Nah, most of the signings I do are with people no-one's ever heard of, so there aren't any crowds, just a few people who take pity on them, so we have lots of time to chat and sometimes we even play cards, they're not famous like you"

"Actually, I'm not absolutely sure I like being famous like me"

"Really?"

"Don't forget to pack, we're off to Glasgow tomorrow after we finish"

God, he's bossy, I'm supposed to be the one organising things for him, not the other way round, and I wonder why he doesn't like being famous, most people would love it, especially the authors I usually work with.

OGOGOGOGOG

Another day at the coal face and it didn't get any easier, mind you after lunch Charles invited me to stand by his shoulder, right next to where he was sitting, almost touching him, so that he occasionally spoke to me between middle aged groupies, which meant that I didn't have to fight quite so hard to keep awake, besides I had other things on my mind. A couple of times he nudged me and started laughing when he saw me struggling to hide the fact that I'd started to yawn.

Jane had obviously been busy and had arranged for a car to pick us up and drive us across to Glasgow, and the driver had been to our hotel and collected our luggage for us; I mustn't get too used to all this cos I've got a feeling that none of it is for my benefit.

There was this horrendous traffic jam on the motorway going across to Glasgow and Charles was twitching a bit as if he was feeling awkward about something, either that or he needed a pee; then he asked me if I would mind very much if he got off the train at Crewe to go across to Liverpool when we was on our way back home, because he wanted to have an evening out with some old army mates. He said he'd told them he wasn't sure if he could make it because it would mean I was travelling on me own and it takes more than four hours so it would be quite late by the time I got back to Euston, and he wondered if I could maybe ask Steve to come and meet me. I told him I'd be fine, as far as I'm concerned the less we talk about bloody Steve the better, and that I was used to travelling on me own around London but actually I couldn't help feeling a little bit left out that he didn't ask me to join him and his mates on their night out. I know I'm being ridiculous, of course he isn't going to ask me, why would he? But I can't help feeling a bit sorry for myself.

Jane had booked us into the Belhaven Hotel which is, if anything, even more posh than the one in Edinburgh, good old Jane, I must take her a box of shortbread, one of them tartan ones cos I don't think she'd appreciate Charles' suggestion of a haggis. I don't know if he was serious or not, it's very hard to tell with him, but he pretended to be all offended when I giggled. Anyhow, I'm pretty sure it'd end up in the bin if I took her a bloody sheep's stomach full of mince, I don't care how much of a national delicacy he says it is.

It was sort of teatime, supper time I mean, see I'm learning, when we got to the hotel and he invited me to eat out at a sushi bar, but this time I did know he was taking the piss, I mean, I know what sushi is and do I look like someone who would eat raw fish? Although he swore blind he was serious. I told him to go on his own if he wanted it that much and that I'd have a room service burger, so we went to a burger bar instead, although he kept on about me being a coward for refusing to try sushi and saying that he thought I'd love it. Yeah right, I'll take his word for it. We walked to the lake in Kelvingrove Park which was lovely, the walk and the park, even if the art gallery 'n that were closed, but there was plenty of statues and a band stand and stuff to look at so it was getting a bit dark when we turned and headed back to the hotel. I've done more walking in the last three days than I have in the last three years, well that's what it feels like anyway, and there's something I wanna say to him before we get back to the hotel.

"Charles, you know that first time I met you, in the pub? When I spilt Cherry's beer over you"

"How could I forget?"

"Yeah sorry, it really was an accident, you know, I was mortified and me and Cherry weren't really laughing at you, it was just sort of a little bit funny"

"I was mortified too when that woman told me I should be ashamed of myself at my age"

"Oh shit she never"

"Yep you're right, she never" He'd stopped walking and started laughing "Do you always believe everything you're told? God, you're so gullible"

"That is not funny" Me? I'm not in the least bit gullible, I'm hard as nails I am, I don't normally believe anything I'm told, but this was a bit different, I felt bad about what'd happened. I couldn't help wanting to laugh though because his laugh is very infectious

"Yes it is" He was still pissing himself laughing at me.

"What's funny now?" He was beginning to annoy me, it wasn't that funny.

"You are, you're so funny when you're grumpy"

Then suddenly he wasn't laughing any more as we stood and looked at each other in the gloom and he bent his head and put his lips very gently on mine, barely touching me, so that I wanted to put my hands round the back of his neck and wind my fingers in his curls.

"Molly" He'd lifted his head but he still wasn't touching me.

"What?" I didn't know what he was waiting for, why the hell didn't just kiss me?

"It's bloody raining" He'd started to laugh again.

"Is it? Oh shit, I hadn't noticed"

OGOGOGOGOG

 **Author's notes: Thank you for your reviews, you're all lovely. Apparently there is a Mumsnet thread of middle-aged hormonal women lusting after CJ on tour, sorry I missed it but thanks to Pinerug for the tip off, and there I was thinking I was the only one living in my fantasy!**

Chapter 5: Chantal reappears and Molly's lie comes back to bite her on the bum.


	5. Chapter 5

I really hadn't noticed the rain until he said about it, but actually it wasn't far off pissing down, we were going to get bloody soaked. Why does it rain so much in Scotland? And why now? He put his arm round my shoulders as we started to walk back towards the hotel with the rain soaking my hair and dripping off my nose onto my sweatshirt, rain that was actually bloody cold.

"I probably shouldn't have done that, should I?"

"Why not?" Surely he wasn't sorry about it already? Anyway he hadn't actually done much, well nothing at all really and I'd sort of had this thought that we could maybe take up where we'd left off when we got back to the hotel, only in one of their nice big warm, dry, king sized beds.

"You're engaged to Steve aren't you?

"Oh yeah" Steve, shit, I'd forgotten all about him, how the hell am I going to explain Steve? I'm going to have to say but I'm not sure how he's going to take it, Charles I mean, not Steve, I don't give a toss about Steve, and I don't want Charles to take his arm away.

"What about Chantal?" I might as well get all the bad news while he's got his arm round me.

"With Chantal it's complicated"

"What's that supposed to mean?" What the fuck does he mean complicated? Is that it, is that all he's gonna say? I think I'd quite like to know a bit more than that before I get my kit off, thanks very much, although come to think of it, he hasn't actually suggested that I get my kit off, has he?

"Come on let's run, we're getting bloody soaked" He took his arm off my shoulder and took hold of my hand and started to run, pulling me along with him.

OGOGOGOGOGOG

Maybe he had a point the other night when he'd said I wasn't very fit, I'd got a god-awful awful stitch and my burger was threatening to make a return visit any second. It's alright for him, he's got bloody long legs and he's obviously fit and he can run fast, but I haven't, I'm not and I can't and it won't make any difference him trying to pull me along, I'm totally shagged out.

We were dripping on the marble floor of the foyer of the hotel and he was laughing at me as I shivered and tried to remember how to breathe, then did my best to push the soaking wet and dripping rats tails of hair off my face, when the evening came to a totally shitty end.

"Hello Charles" She walked across the reception area and put her arm through his and ignored me completely. Talk about a serious problem with her manners. She looked every inch the bloody glamorous cow that I'd remembered, her hair was all sleek and blonde and highlighted and she looked like she'd just had a blow dry at the sodding hairdresser, her make-up was all subtle and really well done and her dress was all smart and perfect and she smelt faintly of some gorgeous perfume, which I wouldn't mind betting he'd bought for her.

"Chantal, what on earth are you doing here?" I have to say that he didn't exactly look over the moon to see her as he pecked her on the cheek and it goes without saying that I wasn't totally thrilled either.

"I thought I'd surprise you" She still hadn't even bothered to look at me, rude cow "Where on earth have you been, you're soaked?"

OGOGOGOGOGOG

It wasn't the best night's sleep I've ever had, even though it was a fantastic room with a bloody huge bed, but I couldn't help thinking that someone's got it in for me somewhere. Not that I was actually planning to go to bed with him, you know to seduce him or anything, of course not, well I don't think I was, and he hadn't actually said anything like that to me either, but I think it's just as well she showed up when she did last night and not an hour or two later. It would have been nice to have had a conversation about Steve 'n that, although I think I can work out now where Cheryl fits into the things. Christ I hope he's not intending to bail on me at Crewe and leave me on me own at the mercy of his girlfriend who's got what Cherry calls an unfortunate personality disorder. I don't get paid enough for that.

One thing I do know is that I'm not sure about Steve any more, that I want to be engaged to him that is, for real, I mean, not our pretend engagement, let alone marry the bugger. I'm not sure that I even want to go out with him any more so I'm tempted to let him keep all the money he owes me and to just find a nice kind way of telling him that he's toast. I'm just not one hundred percent certain that if I walk away from him, I won't be fucking up my life.

OGOGOGOGOG

She was nowhere to be seen when we set off to do another fun day's book signing; I'm beginning to seriously think I need to find a different sort of job. Charles says that she's gone shopping; I don't understand what the hell's so wrong with the shops in London that she had to come all the way up here to go to Marks & Sparks but at least she won't be travelling home on the same train as us, apparently she's making her own way back. Surely she didn't come all the way up here just for a shag, I mean he'll be home in a couple of days, couldn't she have just waited? Jesus he must be something else, not that I'm about to find out…... Anyway, I don't have to travel back with her so thank Christ for small mercies, but he don't show any signs of wanting to explain to me just what the fuck's going on here.

I'm beginning to feel like I was being lined up to be a famous author's bit of rough, you know his bit on the side, maybe he thought he should get a bonus shag or something for writing a book about defeating the Taliban, after all he got very arsey when his mate the civil servant got caught out, didn't he? I've heard that actors what go on location think it's okay if they play away a bit when they're away from home, that it don't count, so maybe he thought this was the same sort of thing. Well, if that's what he thought, I'm sure there'll be tons of volunteers, It's just that I won't be one of them.

He didn't get a chance to explain anything during the day, the book department was packed, and just for a change, most of them were women, now there's a surprise, and the cafeteria at lunch was just as crowded, so I sort of expected him to tell me when we was on the train going home, or in his case to Crewe. He might have done, but the train was even more packed and bloody noisier than the book signing or the cafeteria; it was standing room only for masses of football supporters, and most of them seemed to have had one or two lemonade shandies while they was waiting for the train. He was very sweet and kept saying about giving Crewe and Liverpool a miss because he was worried about leaving me on my own with them, but I just laughed at him. When you've grown up in east Ham with my Dad, like I did, a few drunks on a train definitely ain't gonna worry you.

"You will be alright, won't you?"

"Yeah, I keep telling you, I'll be fine, we'll all be best mates by the time we get to Euston"

"Very reassuring"

"Go on push off and have a good time"

"Seriously, Molls, you will be careful won't you?"

"Get off this bloody train or it's gonna move and you'll still be on it and don't get too hammered" I don't know why I said that, I sounded like his bloody mother or someone and it isn't really any of my business.

"I won't, I'll call you tomorrow and maybe we can go somewhere quiet and have a bit of a chat"

He really looked as though he was going to kiss me goodbye, but I turned my head so that his peck landed somewhere near my right ear; I'm sorry but I can't do any of this until I know what's going on with him and Cheryl, I want to know what complicated is supposed to mean.

The rest of the journey was pretty much as you'd expect, lots of singing and shouting and a fair bit of swearing and swigging out of cans and lots of tutting from the rest of the passengers, mind you I could have done very nicely without the knight in shining armour who decided that I needed cheering up because my bloke had deserted me at Crewe. He probably meant well, but it's a bloody good job that no-one's allowed to smoke on a train anymore, because if anyone had lit a match near his breath it would have blown the whole bleeding train up.

Euston late at night is a gloomy hole and I'd had more than my fair share of drunks for one night, plus I had to carry me own luggage, which I haven't had to do before on this trip, so I decided to get a bloody taxi home and to hell with the cost. I'm going to demand that the company pays for it anyway, Geoff couldn't possibly expect me to get the tube after the journey I've just had. Well, he might expect it, but he won't get it.

OGOGOGOGOGOG

"Tell me it's not true"

"Okay, it's not true" I did the long pause thing that we do "What's not true?"

"Tell me you're not going to be Mrs 'effing arsehole'. Please tell me that Jane's got it all wrong …."

"Oh shit, where the bloody hell did she get that from? And if it was true you know you would have been the first one I'd tell, not Jane"

I wasn't exactly denying anything, cos as I've said before I'm a shit liar, and Cherry knows me well enough to know when I'm telling porkies, but Charles isn't the only one who's got some complicated shit going on. And speaking of Charles, there was only one person Jane could have got that load of bollocks from, and what the bloody hell did he think he was doing telling people about me and Steve? Okay, I sort of forgot for a minute that he didn't know it was a big fat lie, but even so, what was he doing talking about me? And what else had he told her? I wasn't sure what was best to do first, whether I should see if I can find him, although he's probably still out of it somewhere with a hangover, and I'm pretty sure he isn't due in here for a few days after he gets back from the States, but I need to find out what his bloody game is or go and find Jane and ask her what else Mr Blabbermouth has been saying about me.

I didn't need to make any sort of decision because Jane came and found me and she was full of a load of 'congratulations' shit and 'why hadn't I said something before?' and a load of bollocks about how 'she couldn't be happier for me' but she seemed so genuinely pleased that I couldn't quite bring myself to say 'I didn't say nothing before because it's not bleeding true'. I asked her how she knew and apparently it wasn't CJ who told her, or not directly, it was Cheryl, but it must have been him who told Cheryl and why the fuck was he talking about me to her and why was she talking about me to Jane? If I ever speak to him again, and that's looking a bit debateable at the moment, I'll have to be really bloody careful what I say, especially when I'm lying. I still don't know where he is and I can't ask questions because Jane isn't stupid and she'll know that something is a bit sus. Apparently Geoff wants to see me which is what I was expecting because he'll have seen my expenses by now, so I'll need to put off sorting out my 'engagement' till after. Even bloody Geoff was at it with the 'congratulations' bollocks and he signed my expenses without putting a red pen through most of it, which is a first, and said how pleased he was with me, which was nice, even if I haven't got a scoobie what he's talking about.

It didn't take long to realise that he was being so nice to me because he was buttering me up for another lot and it's for a weekend and I'm really not that happy that I want to do it again. A bit of me thinks that another couple of days away with Mr Blabbermouth could be even more unsettling, and it'd not as though I enjoy these bloody top author signings, I can't imagine why I ever thought they were exciting or glamorous, give me my also-rans any day. On the other hand, I'm not too happy at the thought of someone else, like Cherry or someone, going off to Exeter with him, leaving me behind. I know Cherry don't normally do signings, but she fancies him, so she'd most likely jump at it. I know, fickle or what?

OGOGOGOGOG

"Molly?"

"Yes" Oh if it isn't Mr Blabbermouth himself.

"What's the matter, are you okay?"

"Course I am, why wouldn't I be?"

The trouble is that I'd sort of forgotten until I heard his voice on the phone that he's not my mate, so I can't really yell at him, he's a meal ticket author and I can't say anything about anything in case he gets shitty and opens his gob. Not that I think he will, but he's already proved he can't keep a secret, well maybe that's a bit unfair, cos he didn't actually know it was a secret, still what did he think he was doing telling Chardonnay about me and Steve and what the fuck has it got to do with her anyway?

"Where are you?"

"I've just got back to Crewe"

"Oh, suffering this morning were we?"

"I was, I don't know about you"

"Oh, ha ha"

"Yup, it was okay, it was good, what about you, were you okay? On that train I mean"

"I'm here aren't I? And in one piece, so it must have been okay"

"Are you mad at me for some reason?"

"No, course not" and that's big fat lie number two.

"Are you going to meet me for something to eat later? Or a drink or something? After work"

"Okay"

What the hell's the matter with me? Two weeks ago I was desperate for Steve to propose and for us to do the "happy ever after" bit, and now here I am in danger of making a complete pranny of myself over some posh bloke who laughs at me all the time. Not only that but he's got a sodding girlfriend, who's tall and good looking and really smooth, even if she has got a shit attitude, and she lives with him, or at least I'm guessing that she lives with him, no-one's actually said. Oh shit, here I go again, clutching at straws. I'm beginning to get a bit worried that tipping a half a pint of beer over some posh bloke's groin is going to lead to my whole life going tit's up.

OGOGOGOGOG

 **Author's notes: Thanks for your support, I'm glad that you are still enjoying this. Losing confidence in herself is something that Molly is really good at and is, in fact, something that many of us do when we start to want someone who appears to be out of our league.**

Chapter 6: Molly finds out why his relationship with Chantal is complicated and decides to get shot of Steve ….if only it was that easy


	6. Chapter 6

"Is everything alright with your meal, Sir?"

I want to tell her that the bloody meal is just as okay as it was the last three times she asked him and why the fuck doesn't she just ask him for a shag and have done with it? I expect that he's used to this, but it's seriously pissing me off.

"Can I get you anything else?" Oh God help us, she's back again.

"Oh for fu…. goodness sake"

"Molly!"

"What?"

"Nothing"

Well why doesn't he stop bloody laughing then? And she's just his type, blonde and skinny with legs up to her armpits, and pretty, a bit like sodding Chantal actually. Maybe what's why it's seriously getting on my tits.

"Can't we get out of here before she comes back and sits on your lap?"

I thought we'd come out for a bit of a chat, but there's bloody no chance of that with her keep hanging around is there? Has he forgotten he said he was going to tell me about Chantal? I want to tell him to stop pretending he doesn't remember what he said and to get on with it.

"She really is my agent, you know" He grinned at me "I don't know why you think agent is a euphemism" That's quite scary; I think he's just read my mind which could be very embarrassing.

"If I knew what one of them was, I'd let you know why"

"I'm sure you know what a euphemism is, but okay, I don't know why you think she's my girlfriend and not my agent"

"Well, most of the agents I meet aren't quite so, I dunno, shitty to people, they're usually quite nice" What I mean is that maybe it's because she's so bleeding rude and unfriendly, especially to me.

"With Chantal it's complicated"

"Yeah, you said"

"She's been good to me, Molly, helped me a lot when I was looking for someone to publish my book. I was a bit down after I'd left the army and she was very supportive, set up the deal in the States and then brokered the film deal, and then she bought me to Geoff, so I owe her a lot, but she's a bit, umm, possessive"

You don't say? Yeah so okay, she's your literary agent, and that's what bloody literary agents' do. You can't get anything published without one, or if you do it's incredibly hard, nearly impossible actually, so we see them all the time when they're looking for deals, but it doesn't mean they have to behave like their client belongs to them, does it? Or is he trying to tell me that he's not shagging her, because I'm sorry sunshine, I don't buy that for a second.

"It was my fault, I complicated things. When we were celebrating the book deal I was incredibly stupid and selfish and I ruined everything because you can't go back to what you had before, can you?" He shook his head "I'm not going to make excuses, say I'd been drinking or that I was lonely or miserable, although that's all true, but it happened because it's what I wanted, at the time, and I've tried really hard lately to let her down gently. I can't just hop out of her bed to well, you know… it wouldn't be right and I don't want to hurt her. She's still my agent and I'm still under contract, so I can't just stay away from her either" He shrugged and started to fiddle with the cutlery on the table, then started running his hand over the hair on the back of his neck, I've noticed that he does that a lot when he's a bit worried about something. He looked up at me and smiled "Not that I'm talking about you or anything, I mean I know you're engaged to Steve and anyway I wouldn't want to do the same thing again and then lose another friend, I'm just trying to explain why it's complicated and why she can seem a bit, I don't know, off"

"No, sorry but that doesn't explain why she's so bloody rude to me"

"She knows I like you" he smiled again "She knows me well enough to know that I like you a lot, and that's why I told her you were engaged to Steve."

Yeah, thanks a lot for that. I want to ask him why me being engaged to Steve would make her feel better, if there's nothing going on between them now, but as he's just said that he likes me a lot as _a friend_ , the 'why' doesn't matter does it? Oh good, I mean it's just great that he doesn't want to do anything that might spoil us being friends, that's nice, and he's not going to do anything to upset things between me and bloody Steve, and that's very considerate of him, isn't it? Considering that there is no bloody me and Steve, not in the way he thinks anyway. Oh shit, what the fuckety fuck made me tell such a stupid, stupid lie?

I met Steve Wilkins at a party when we were both a bit hammered and I thought he was quite literally the best looking bloke I'd ever seen and I loved the fact that he obviously fancied me as much as I fancied him. We didn't go to bed for ages after we first met which was exciting at the time, all that waiting and looking forward to it and Charles is right about one thing and that's that you can't go back and just be friends once you've shagged someone and I should have kept Steve as just a friend really. I kept trying to tell myself that I loved him and so I went to bed with him, but looking back now that was mainly because I wanted to be with somebody, wanted to love someone, and he was there and he wanted me.

Bed with Steve doesn't work for me, I mean I know what's supposed to happen, what I'm supposed to feel, but it's never happened to me with Steve not even close, nor with any other bloke actually, and I certainly don't fancy women, but I could give that actress in that restaurant lessons on how to bloody fake it, all that heavy breathing and writhing and moaning with some face pulling, followed by a bit of thrashing about. I could probably run evening classes in it …. If I'm being honest, most of the time it's because I just want him to get on with it and get it over with, so I can't blame him that it doesn't work for me, can I? Anyway if he believes the Oscar winning performances that I put on and he obviously does, then he most likely thinks he's the nuts at it so why should he ever do anything different? And it's a bit bloody late now to start telling him the truth and I don't care enough, and I _really, really_ don't fancy him enough, to bother.

I keep thinking that I have no clue what I'm going to do about Steve, but that's not true. I can't go on sleeping with him and kidding myself that we have some sort of future together, it's not going to happen and to be honest I don't want it to any more. It's actually got nothing to do with the crap sex, or even the money, really, mind you I can't tell him that I've decided that I'm not going to marry him, cos he's never asked me to, he'd most likely run a mile. I think what I decided in Scotland is probably favourite, that I'm going to have to tell him to keep the money he owes me and we'll pretend that we'll stay being friends, which we won't, and that's a bit sad, I s'pose.

OGOGOGOGOG

"I'm sorry Steve, it's not you it's me' well that sounds like total crap for a start, I sound like some cheap, cheesy soap opera.

'I'm sorry; we're not really working are we?' No, that won't do either, I have a feeling that the way things are works just fine for him, it's me that has a problem, a problem that apparently just appeared after a couple of days in Scotland.

'You know I've been very busy at work this last couple of weeks and I need to concentrate on my career' My WHAT? That would work okay if I want him to piss himself laughing.

'I don't want to lose what we've got, being good friends, I mean' and now I'm nicking lines from someone else. Shit, I'm really beginning to wonder if this was what Charles was doing, trying to give me the brush off because he'd sussed what I was thinking about him.

It doesn't matter how much I tried to rehearse what I was going to say, it still sounded like complete bollocks, and that's because that's what it is, absolute bollocks. What I want to say is that he's toast cos he's a total dickhead loser and I'm pissed off with pretending that I still love him, or that I ever did actually, that he's useless in bed and that I'm sick of paying out shedloads of money that I haven't got, so that he can ponce about being an arsehole pretending to be a photographer, but I can't say any of that, can I? And I'm not even sure that it's all true, I'm not sure of what's true right now except that I want someone else, and I can't bleeding say that can I? Especially as the bloke I want is way, way out of my league in every possible way and has already told me that he wants to be my _friend._

It didn't actually work out the way I'd planned it, I didn't get to say any of it. I'd got myself all geared up and then I dunno, he came bounding in all pleased to see me and calling me 'babe' and all buzzing because he's sold a ton of stuff since he caught out Charles' tosser of a mate, most of it more of the sleazy git stuff, but still…. Then he actually gave me back almost half of what he owes me, so I couldn't use the money thing as an excuse to dump him and he didn't ask me to go to bed or ask if he could stop over or even try to kiss me beyond a peck on the cheek, so that was out the window as well, so as far as Steve's concerned we're still an item and maybe we are, I just don't know anymore. Or maybe he's gone off me, which would be really handy.

I was looking at him getting all excited about stuff, waving his arms around and tripping over his words as he told me all about it and for the first time for ages I began to think straight, I mean, I hardly know Charles and he certainly hasn't made a move on me, has he? One almost kiss and him telling me that he wants us to be friends and there I am starting to get all these stupid ideas in my head, what the hell am I thinking? I've got to be careful cos if people at work find out what I've been imagining I'll end up losing my job. That's what'll happen if they think I've been coming on to a meal ticket, or any other author for that matter, and I'll end up without a boyfriend or a job, which will mean that I won't have a pot to piss in, as Nan would say.

OGOGOGOGOG

Cherry keeps bugging me to tell her what's been going on, where Jane got hold of all that bullshit about me and Steve getting engaged, and I feel bloody awkward because I don't want to tell her about any of it. Even though she's been my best mate for years, this is complicated, shit; now I'm at it with the complicated, and I'm not sure what to tell her anyhow. I can't tell her that I told Charles I was engaged because, well, I'm not sure now why I said it, or that he almost kissed me which I found more exciting than half an hour of Steve's fumbling. And that's the problem isn't it, there really isn't anything to tell, except that I told a huge whopping lie and then set out to kid myself that some drop dead gorgeous sexy bloke, with a drop dead gorgeous sexy girlfriend was coming on to me in the middle of a sodding park when it was pissing down with rain and I looked like something the cat sicked up.

OGOGOGOGOG

Apparently Exeter has been postponed because he's still stuck in the States and I'm not sure how I feel now I know that it's going to be almost two weeks before I see him again, before he gets back from his shag-fest in America with personality challenged Cheryl, Oh sorry, I mean, "complicated" Chantal. I think on the whole I'm a bit relieved cos it gives me two weeks to start pulling myself together, to stop all this cobblers and get back to being me before we have to do the next bit of the tour, which, according to Geoff, is a weekend one again only this time in Bournemouth and Poole. Well, the scenery will probably be quite nice even if the weather isn't that great and the rest of it turns out to be total shit.

One good thing, well, I think it's probably good, is that I'm going to start doing something to get fit, not being able to breathe, or breathing like a seventy year old who smokes twenty a day and then practically pukes up her dinner if she has to do any running or even a lot of walking, isn't the sexiest thing in the world is it? Cherry and I have decided to go to Yoga, starting tomorrow night, because as usual she wants to lose weight, although I don't know enough about it to know whether Yoga will help her with that, and I want to get a bit fitter before I even think about killing myself by going to a gym.

OGOGOGOGOG

 **Author's notes: Thank you for your reviews and all your lovely comments; as I've said before, they are what keep me going when I'm sitting at my laptop listening to my other half telling me I'm completely barking! I can't help wanting to know whether other FF authors have such supportive families. I keep telling him that he should be grateful, at least if I disappear into my alternative universe he doesn't have to talk to me!**

Chapter 7: A trip to the seaside…


	7. Chapter 7

There are women in this Yoga class who must be at least seventy and who are wearing leotards for fuck's sake, and it's bloody depressing because they look a lot better in them than Cherry and I do. Cherry is a bit on the plump side, well I wouldn't say something like that to her, obviously, because she'd go into meltdown, and I'm so bloody titchy that I look like a little girl, well apart from the tits and when I look down I really can't help thinking that I should have worn a bra because my leotard is rubbing on my nipples so that I'm beginning to look like a porn star. Don't bleeding ask what I'm doing here trying to tie myself in knots while some torturer counts out loud, and I've never known anyone count so bloody slowly, and who then showed me how to do deep breathing properly so that I can hold my breath while she counts. I had to breathe out before she got there otherwise I'd have died on the spot, so then I sort of crawled to the water thingy and now I'm dripping with sweat although I've hardly moved, so Charles was obviously right when he accused me of being seriously unfit. We went on to do a back stretching exercise which showed me that either I'm deformed, my arms have shrunk or someone's cut my feet off, and then we did some pelvic floor exercise which was all about contracting those muscles which will prevent incontinence in later life apparently, but never mind about that, it immediately made me want to go to the loo and I'm now thinking that this is some sort of conspiracy because I was beginning to feel a bit sort of horny when I was doing it and I have to keep reminding myself that I'm not going to think about Charles.

Everyone else seemed to be glowing afterwards, even Cherry, well she was a bit, but I was sweating buckets, the pelvic floor stuff had made me desperate for a pee and I was walking like someone who was on their last legs. It seems that you have got to be fit before you can even start thinking about getting fit. I know I said I weren't going to think about Charles, but I don't think I can do this getting fit stuff, even if I had a chance of being with him, which I don't, because it's obvious that Yoga's not for me so maybe I'll try something else. The way I feel right now that'll most likely take at least another six months by the time I've recovered from this lot.

OGOGOGOGOG

I'm really grateful to Jane for the advance copy of his second book because it means that even though he's sitting opposite me on the train to Bournemouth, I don't have to look at him; for some reason I feel really shy as if he's almost a stranger, which is bleeding nonsense in the circumstances isn't it? I can feel that he keeps looking at me and that he's a bit puzzled about what the fuck's going on, but then he doesn't know how much shit I've been dreaming up in the last few weeks does he?

His book is really good actually, it's all about what happened when he was in hospital after he was shot and when he realised that he was going to have to leave the army and find something else to do, and it's making me sad so that I want to, I dunno really, cry or hug him or something. I wish I'd read the first one now, so maybe I'll nick a copy at the signing tomorrow and read it tomorrow night; it'll save me having to find something to do in the evening that doesn't include him.

The longer we sit in silence on this sodding train the more uncomfortable I feel, I desperately want to chat, but I can't think of anything to say; I really wish he would say something to me, start a conversation like he did when we was on our way to Edinburgh. What I really want to do is to ask him about America, and whether he had a good time and whether _she_ was with him, but I made a sort of promise to myself that I would do my best to keep things as if we're casual friends, which was what he said he wanted. I don't know why it's so bloody hard, but it is.

OGOGOGOGOG

Good old Jane, the Haven Hotel at Sandbanks is just perfect, maybe not as posh and modern as the place in Glasgow, but it's in a really lovely place. In fact the whole taxi ride once we'd got out of Bournemouth and onto the road into Sandbanks, past all the water with all the little boats was magic; I know I've always said that I want to live in Soho but I've just changed my mind, I want to live here. Charles burst my bubble when he started laughing and said that you have to be a bleeding millionaire or even a billionaire to live here and looking at the houses on the other side of the road I can see why, but I can dream. I just can't see me and Steve making it here somehow, mind you I don't think me and Steve are going to make it anywhere, because we might actually be history. I haven't seen him or heard from him since he came round that time and gave me some of my money back, so I guess I've got all I'm going to get.

The Haven is right at the sort of tip where the road runs out with the sea on one side and the harbour sort of place on the other, with Brownsea Island over the way, which Charles says is famous for being where the Boy Scouts started, and with a little ferry thing in front of the hotel to get across to where there's a lovely beach. It's really pretty and I'll bet it's lovely in the summer when it's warm and sunny, because it's nice now and it's not either of them things. It would be nice to be on a signing tour with Charles without it pissing down with rain, but right now it's windy and cold, the sea's rough and it's so gloomy and cloudy that it's obvious its gonna start raining any second.

We had our supper on a table right in the window of this sun-room sort of place off the restaurant which looks out onto the ferry and the sea n' that which might come in bleeding handy because that means there is the view to look at if we end up sitting in silence all night. I took his book down with me so that I'd have something to do for the same reason. I don't know why we've suddenly found we don't seem to have anything to say to one another, and that we keep looking away when we look at each other at the same moment; when we was in Scotland we was chatting away nineteen to the dozen and I don't know what's changed, just that something has and it isn't just me. Then this bleeding great car ferry went through the harbour entrance in front of us and it was so close it was as if you could put your hand out and touch the people on the deck and for some reason we just started to chat.

He put his hand on his book on the table and asked me what I thought.

"It's okay, it's not bad"

"Not bad? God, you're cruel, I'm really hurt" He was pretending to be all offended, even though he was grinning, so maybe we can get back to being sort of mates, "Still I suppose Ishould be flattered that you're actually reading this one, not like the other one"

"I did read the other one, well okay, I looked at the pictures and we wouldn't want you getting all cocky, would we? Mind you, you'll have to be careful when you do book tours with this one, there are bits that are sad so you'll have all your fans wanting to kiss you and hug you better, and they'll all be telling to keep on being a brave boy" He'd raised his eyebrows and smirked when I'd said about him getting cocky, so maybe it wasn't the best word to choose, but he now looked bloody horrified so I started laughing "Don't worry it'll more than likely be the women"

"Will you be one of them?"

Shit, he's flirting with me again, or we're flirting with each other, so a few hours together and all those promises I've been making to myself for the past few weeks are bloody well disappearing again. If I'm not careful I'm going to be back where I started.

"Come on let's have a drink" He didn't wait for an answer but grabbed hold of my hand and pulled me through to the bar, the view out of the window wasn't nearly so pretty now anyway with the rain pelting down so that you couldn't even see the island anymore, and it was starting to get dark.

I don't know whose idea it was to start having shots, but I've got a nasty feeling it was probably mine, anyhow we started drinking Tequila, even though I'd forgotten that I don't drink the stuff. The more shots we had, the funnier his stories about America got, or seemed to get, and he never mentioned ' _her'_ once, and he never said ' _we'_ either, I know because I was listening out for it, I couldn't help it. I told him about the Yoga, even about the pelvic floor exercise, although not about it making me feel horny, which shows that although I was getting pretty hammered, I wasn't that hammered, and how I couldn't move afterwards and how bloody unfit the whole thing had made me feel.

Then suddenly we wasn't laughing anymore and it was just like being back in that park in Glasgow, before our 'nearly kiss', except that this time I wanted him to kiss me so much that I almost jumped him. He put his hand on my face and stroked my cheekbone with this thumb.

"You don't need to go to Yoga or anything else, you're perfect just the way you are"

"I don't do perfect"

"I always tell the truth when I'm drunk"

"Are you drunk?"

"Yup, and because I'm drunk I'm going to take myself off to bed before I do something that I want to do very, very much but which would probably be very, very stupid. Don't forget we've got to spend all day tomorrow in a baking hot Book Store and it would be helpful if one of us can stand up and see straight"

OGOGOGOGOG

"Cherry?"

"What the fuck time do you call this? This had better be bloody good, lady, or is something wrong? Shit, Molls, tell me, what's wrong? What's happened?"

"Nothing's wrong, I just wanted a chat"

"It's gone midnight and you thought you'd wake me up for a little chat? Are you plastered?"

"A bit, sorry, I didn't realise the time, I'll let you get back to sleep"

"No you won't, you'll bloody tell me what's going on, you can't wake me up and then just piss off and leave me hanging like this"

"I thought he'd come and knock, but he hasn't and I don't know whether to go and knock on his, because I don't know whether that's really what I want to do, well it is what I want to do but maybe that's because I'm a bit hammered, I'm not sure now, and I don't really care about being friends or not being friends any more, except that I'd rather be friends obviously and I sort of know that he wants to, well he nearly said so, or at least I think he did ….."

"Molly" Cherry interrupted.

"What?"

"I haven't got a bloody clue what you're talking about and I'm not so sure that you have either. Go to bed and sleep it off, and whatever you do don't do anything at all right now"

When the sun came up it was hurting my eyes and I was still fully dressed and asleep on top of the bed covers with all the lights on. It looks like I hadn't got around to shutting the curtains last night, or taking my make-up off or getting into bed or anything and obviously something small and furry has crawled into my mouth and died sometime in the night. I've got a sort of vague memory of talking to Cherry at some point, but I can't remember why or what we talked about now and I feel so crap that I'm not sure I can face sitting up, let alone getting up, getting showered and dressed and then spending a whole day standing there being nice to people. I haven't got a scoobie how much I drank last night or what I did, but I do remember now why I don't drink Tequila. I can't face any breakfast, not even coco-pops, because they probably wouldn't stay down for long, so I made do with two paracetamol and a glass of water then tried a cup of black tea, but half a cup was enough to show me that it wasn't the best idea I've ever had. Holy fuck, I've got to sort myself out in case he comes to find me, no-one, not even my family would find me attractive right now, and I'm bloody sure I'm minging apart from anything else.

"You look as bad as I feel"

"Thanks"

"Are you okay, I mean, are you going to eat anything before we go?"

"Ugh, don't" Even the thought of it made me want to puke "Are you?"

"I've had my breakfast, well, I had two cups of coffee and a couple of aspirin"

"You've done better than me then, I only had half a cup of tea and two paracetamol"

"We'd just better hope that we don't still stink of booze and that neither of us throw up in the middle of the Book Shop"

OGOGOGOGOG

 **Author's notes: I know, almost but not quite! Thanks, as usual, for your wonderful feedback and I hope that you've enjoyed this chapter. A huge thanks to Elizabeth for the fun on Saturday afternoon, haven't giggled so much for ages.**

Chapter 8: A long walk on a beach and some revelations change everything ….


	8. Chapter 8

"Come on let's go for a walk, go on the ferry and go across to that beach"

"What?" A great big dose of fresh air and exercise wasn't exactly what I had in mind for the rest of the afternoon.

"It's a lovely afternoon, let's go for a walk"

So here we go again, an unfit, hungover and thoroughly pissed off Molly Dawes on another sodding route march with a seriously fit bloke, and I don't only mean the way he looks and when he says it's a lovely afternoon what he means is that it's not actually pissing down which makes a change, and although the bleeding sun's shining, when it's not behind the clouds of course, the wind's blowing off the sea and it's bloody freezing.

I think I actually did really well, considering how bad I felt first thing, but Charles was sort of suffering as the day went on so that even for someone who looks as bloody gorgeous as he does he was looking a bit rough, well more than a bit actually so that I began to worry that his joke about throwing up was going to come true any second. I think I've most likely had more practice at hangovers than he has, in spite of him being in the army and let's face it, we all know what pissheads soldiers are. Even so, he still managed to smile at the hordes of bloody women who were smiling and batting their eyelashes at him as he signed their books, and I'm pretty sure that none of them noticed the beads of sweat on his lip as he kept drinking loads of water, then vanishing off to the bogs. He most likely went to pee some of the gallons of water he was drinking and not to throw up, but I wouldn't be one hundred percent certain of that. I don't think either of us was exactly sorry when half past three came round, I know I was bloody glad that we had an early finish so that I could go and lie on my bed for a couple of hours before dinner with a nice hot mug of tea and a packet of chocolate biscuits. I was going to phone Cherry as well to find out what the hell went on last night, the sooner I face that the better. I am never, ever doing Tequila shots again, I know I've said it before, but I really mean it this time.

I'm glad that the little ferry thing is on some sort of chains that pull it backwards and forwards so that it doesn't bob up and down, because I took one look at the rough sea and my stomach decided that it was still decidedly dodgy.

He put his arm round my shoulders and rested his hand on the top of my arm as we walked up the road on the other side, and I don't know why, but this time it really got to me. What the fuck does he think he's playing at? One minute he's telling me I'm perfect and the next that it would be a really stupid idea to kiss me, one minute he's smiling and laughing at me, all mates or, if I am being honest, flirting like buggery with me, and the next he's haring off home to his girlfriend and then they're pissing off to America together while he tells me that it's complicated and he doesn't want to hurt her. Well, what about me? Why is he playing about with me? My feelings obviously don't count. So fuck him, and fuck her as well. I don't need any of this shit in my life, I had a perfectly nice one before I met him, before he came marching in behaving like he's the dog's bollocks so that I ended up trying to turn myself inside out at Yoga, risking seriously damage to me bits, and dumping, or considering dumping, Steve, although it looks as though he might have got in first, and on top of that telling me that I eat crap for breakfast. Okay, so my boyfriend wasn't the best, but at least he was around and I don't see him now, do you? I had a job I quite enjoyed, well I can still go back to that as far as I know, and lots of mates and I hope I _'_ vestill got them. Mind you if I keep phoning people after midnight when I'm plastered and horny for him I might not keep them for long, and okay, I know me Mum and Nan kept on about me being on the shelf, but there are lots of worse things that can happen and I'm beginning to think that letting some posh arsehole play games is one of them. And what I eat for breakfast is my business, thanks very much.

"Get off of me" I tried to shrug his arm off my shoulders, I was suddenly in a blazing temper and I didn't want him touching me.

"Sorry" He took his arm away then stood still and looked at me "What's the matter?"

"You are" I wanted to carry on walking but where to was a bit of a problem, there were just miles of flat sand and the sea on one side and sand dunes on the other as far as I could see and it was windy and cold and if Imarched off in a huff I'd have to turn round and walk back and he most likely wouldn't wait for me so where would I get the pound to go on the ferry? I'd got no money with me, so I'd be stuck here.

He put his hands on the tops of my arms and turned me round so that I had no choice but to face him. I really didn't want to stand so close, I needed to get away so that I could carry on getting back to being Molly, Molly Dawes and not someone not even I recognise.

"Let's get out of this wind" He put his hand down to grab hold of mine, but I pulled it away, I didn't want to hold his hand, as we turned and started walking back into the dunes where it was very sheltered from the wind and was so still and quiet that it felt like we were the only people for miles around. Mind you, we most likely were, how many other idiots are there who go for a walk on a beach when it's blowing a sodding gale and bloody freezing? You could just about hear the sea where the waves were hitting the beach, but that was all, and the sun actually felt quite warm, well a bleeding sight warmer than it had felt a few minutes earlier when we was in the wind which had been making my eyes water and making me sniff because my nose was running.

"Is this about Chantal again? Because if it is, are you going to listen and let me explain"

"Go and tell someone who gives a shit" I really don't want to hear all about how complicated it is again, and how he doesn't want to hurt her 'n that, and I don't care how much he thinks he owes her either, I want to slap him or something, cos I don't understand why he can't see what this is doing to me or maybe he can and he just doesn't care?

"I'm sorry; I thought you knew all about it"

"All about what?" Shit what am I doing, asking him to start spouting all that bollocks again?

"I honestly thought you'd know that she fired me as a client, told me she couldn't work with me anymore" He was sounding a bit narked, although I've got no idea why, how the hell was I supposed to know what was going on if no-one bothered to tell me?

"What? How the fuck would I know?" It's bloody unheard of for a literary agent to give a successful author the push, that's how they make their money for fuck's sake, from their 10% or whatever they put in their contract. Usually it was the other way round, the author would change agents to get a better one or a better deal when their contract finished. Speaking of contracts, I thought he'd said he was under one, so what happened to that? And why the fuck had she fired him anyway? And what the hell was he getting so stroppy with me about? He was beginning to sound as though I'd done something to piss him off and not the other way round.

"I don't know, I just thought you'd have heard. When I got back from Scotland, we had a bit of a row and she binned me, well, passed me over to one of her colleagues, said she didn't want to represent me anymore"

"So she didn't go to America with you?"

"No, whatever gave you that idea? I went on my own, it was a bit too short a notice for Mitch to go with me, do you know her?"

"Yeah" Mitch, Megan Mitchell, fifty five if she's a day, married with three grandchildren that she shows pictures of every chance she gets and totally lovely "What did you row about? With Chantal I mean?"

"Nothing really, and anyway why are you so mad at me, is this because of what happened last night, or rather what didn't happen?" He put his hands back on the tops of my arms so that I had to face him again.

"Why would it be?"

"I don't know, Molly, you tell me, and then you can tell me why you keep forgetting about that bloody fiancé of yours, the bloke you're engaged to, while you're at it"

Oh shit, not that again.

"Steve's not my fiancé; I'm not engaged to him"

"What, you've broken off your engagement? Why the hell didn't you say something?"

"Why didn't you, say about Chantal I mean?"

"For the same reason that I didn't want to tell you what Chantal and I rowed about or why last night, because I thought you were engaged to Steve"

"I've never been engaged to Steve, I sort of lied about it"

I can't remember ever feeling so bloody small and awkward and uncomfortable in my life before but I couldn't think of anything to say as he just stood and stared at me.

"So you're telling me that I've spent the last, well God knows how long, trying very hard not to think of you with Steve, of the two of you together, and it wasn't bloody true, any of it? Why? Why did you lie to me about that?"

"He is my boyfriend, or rather he was, I think we're history now, but we weren't engaged and I don't know why I lied, I just felt, Oh, I dunno, I really don't know, okay? And I didn't know you liked me like that, did I?"

"Liked you like what?" He'd got that bloody smirk on his face as if he was laughing at me again "Why on earth would you think I would like just about the prettiest girl I've ever seen? No, I've got to be honest, that's not completely true.."

Don't you dare mention Chantal, I don't give a fuck about you being honest, just don't say anything about that she's prettier than me, although I know that she is.

"The most _beautiful_ girl I've ever seen, even if she did chuck her beer all over me, look at me with those amazing green eyes and then laugh, and even if the next time I saw her she was calling me a wanker and swearing worse than a room full of squaddies"

"I'm sure I never called you a wanker, doesn't sound like me at all, and I'm sorry about the swearing, I didn't know there was anyone in there with Geoff, otherwise I wouldn't have done it, would I?"

"I don't know, do I? But don't you ever change anything about you because you think it's for me, okay? I meant it when I said you're perfect just the way you are. Come here"

He bent his head and we had a re-run of our almost kiss from Glasgow, only this time I put my arms round his neck and twisted my fingers in his curls, which seemed to be all the invitation he needed to do what I'd known was going to happen, and that I'd been waiting for, ever since we'd walked back to the hotel from that shagging castle in Edinburgh. He put his arm round my back and pulled me in close so that I was up against him and started to kiss me, very gently at first which made my legs feel all weak as though they wouldn't hold me up, but then I could feel his tongue touching against my lips so I opened my mouth and began to kiss him back at the same time as I pressed myself against him. His kiss got harder and harder, and his kiss wasn't the only thing.

OGOGOGOGOG

 **Author's notes: Nearly there! Thanks for your reviews, you're all great.**

Chapter 9: Good job there aren't any dog walkers or fishermen around ….


	9. Chapter 9

**Please remember as you read this that it is not supposed to be a lovely romantic description of their first time together, seen from both points of view, but is all from Molly's viewpoint and she's always had very indifferent experiences with pretty uninspiring blokes…**

OGOGOGOGOG

"Not here"

His voice sounded like it was hoarse as he muttered against my lips while he was kissing me and pressing me against him, and I could feel him getting harder and harder and he was holding me tighter and tighter so that I knew just how much he wanted me, which felt like it was probably as much as I wanted him. I am not used to feeling like this, of wanting it so much, well to be honest apart from when I've been on my own if you know what I mean, but definitely not when I've been with any bloke, and I was shit scared that if he stopped kissing me or holding me like he was doing and we started to walk back along the beach to the ferry, and that ferry suddenly seemed like it was bleeding miles away, then went across to the Sandbanks side and up to one of our rooms in the hotel, I would lose all these feelings of wanting him so much that were building up inside me.

I'm still on the pill, I have been since before Steve actually, although I never really trusted Steve that he wouldn't put it about a bit, so I never told him I was on the pill and so never had sex with him without him using a condom, but it does mean that it isn't something we'd have to worry about right now. It is so still and quiet and deserted here, we're well out of that wind and there's just lots of soft warm sand and some of those long grasses on all the mounds and in the dips and hollows and just the noise of the seagulls, and I can smell the sea and just about hear it, but there aren't any other people anywhere. I didn't say anything when he said about not doing it here, just pressed even harder against him and ran my hands down over his bum, then pulled him hard against me so that he groaned. He flinched a bit when I slipped my hands under his sweater at the back and pulled his 't' shirt out of the waistband of his jeans, so that I could run my hands over his warm bare skin; so I'd guess that my hands were a bit cold, but then his were bloody freezing as he put them under the back of my fleece and undid my bra, so I guess we might be staying here a bit longer after all.

Feeling his freezing cold fingers on my warm tits, especially on my nipples, was incredibly exciting as he lifted the front of my fleece and pushed my bra up out of the way then replaced his cold fingers with his warm lips and I arched my back to get closer to him and put my hand at the top of the zip in his jeans and traced it down with my finger tip. I knew when I felt him tilt his hips towards my hand and heard him gasp that we definitely weren't going anywhere now.

Lying down on sand that felt soft and dry and quite warm, although it was actually bloody damp, meant that it was going to get everywhere; as soon as I lay down my hair, which was already a totally tangled mess from the wind was now full of sand, and although I didn't actually care, Charles was lovely and pulled his sweater off to fold it and put it under my head as a pillow. I told him not to, tried to stop him because I didn't want him to get cold, but he just ignored me and started kissing me again and stroking my hair back from my face with hands that were actually trembling a bit, and I don't think it was with the cold. I took off my own trainers and socks because you can't get my jeans off over my trainers, but as I did it I got a bit worried because I can't think of anything less sexy than a pair of sweaty trainers, so much so that for a minute I was worried that it would put him off which I didn't think I could bear so that I almost wished I'd been braver and walked back to the hotel. I shouldn't have worried, I don't think there was anything that was going to put him off now, or put me off either come to that, although I wished I'd kept my socks on because my feet felt bloody cold.

Making love or having sex or however you want to put it when I'm naked from the waist down with my legs wrapped round a bloke that I haven't known very long but who I'm seriously bloody potty about, who in fact I could easily start to love, and who I'm pretty sure is just as potty about me and who has just said that he loves me, and who is wearing a 't' shirt and socks and nothing else, out in the cold in the open where luckily there's no-one else about, or at least I hope there isn't, is the bloody nuts. If there is anyone else around I certainly haven't noticed them. We'd hardly got going when I knew it was going to happen for me, I could feel it building and I wanted to beg him not to come yet, but to try and wait for a bit. I didn't say anything but I think he must have known because as it got closer and closer and I was almost holding my breath and concentrating more and more on not losing the feeling that was building, he kept still and just held me tight until these great big waves of feeling sort of swept all over me, and I was shuddering all the way down to my toes. I think I might have shouted out something, but I'm not sure. He kept still and held me after until I'd calmed right down but as soon as he started to move I could feel it starting all over again only this time it happened very quickly and I know that I shouted out his name as he started almost sort of whispering as he said my name over and over so that it was my turn to keep still and hold onto him as tightly as I could. I've never had sex with anyone without them wearing a condom before, so I didn't realise just how much I would be able to feel and as I watched his face, how that would make me feel.

Afterwards neither of us said anything for a bit as our breathing slowed back down to normal and we smiled at each other as he stroked my face, and I wanted to keep my legs wrapped round him as tightly as I could for ever, when suddenly, from out of nowhere, my eyes started to prickle and these tears started to pour down the sides of my cheeks. I wasn't crying because I definitely wasn't unhappy or anything like that, but it was as if all this emotion started sort of pouring out of me, and I couldn't seem to stop it.

"Oh shit, don't cry Molly, what's wrong?"

"Nothing, there's nothing wrong"

"Why are you crying then?"

"I'm not, really I'm not" I put my hand up and stroked his face then put my legs down. He was looking so incredibly upset and worried that I wanted to explain, well as best as I could that it wasn't anything he'd done, well it was, but not the way he thought. "It's just that it's never happened to me before. No, not that, I don't mean that I was a virgin or anything" I had to laugh at the look on his face and then somehow I wanted to tell him, wanted him to know "It's just that I've always been bloody good at faking it, you know, pretending"

"That makes me feel about ten feet tall"

"You are bloody ten foot tall"

"No I'm not" his eyes were all soft and smiley as he kissed the tip of my nose "But promise me you'll never do that with me, pretend I mean"

"I promise. Does that mean that we're going to do this again then?"

"I bloody well hope so, but maybe let's try a bed next time, not a bloody sand dune. Reminds me a bit of Afghanistan"

"Really? Perhaps I might read your book after all"

"No, I didn't mean what you're thinking, it's just that sand has a habit of getting everywhere you don't want sand. Come on" he pulled me up to my feet "Let's get dressed and go back, it's getting bloody chilly and it'll be starting to get dark soon" He began to pull on his clothes "We can have a nice warm bath and get rid of the sand, then get room service and go to bed early" He kissed me then held onto me as I struggled to balance on one leg to put my knickers and jeans back on "Or we can do it the other way round, go to bed first then have room service, it'll all depends on how long I can keep my hands off you"

OGOGOGOGOG

"Cherry?"

"About bloody time too, why didn't you call me back earlier? I've been calling you all afternoon"

"I know, I'm sorry, I was working, you know doing the bloody signing, and then because it wasn't actually raining we went for a bit of a walk and there wasn't any signal" If I keep on at this rate I'll be getting a bloody degree in lying and it's a good job I'm not face to face with her because she'd know and she'd be able to see how red I've gone.

None of this seems real somehow and I would love to talk about it with Cherry, but I can't. I've had a bath and washed the sand out of everywhere including my hair and I'm sitting on my own bed in my bra and knickers talking to Cherry before I use my hairdryer. I feel a bit bad because she's rung and left loads of messages, but I forgot all about checking my phone earlier and I owe her a big fat sorry for last night.

I was a bit bothered that Charles and I would be sharing the bath, but it's far too small for two especially when one of you is quite big, so I think I'm relieved, I've never shared a bath with a bloke before and I feel a bit shy for some reason, which seems bloody daft, and anyway I sort of wanted to be on my own for a bit, to just think about this afternoon. Charles has gone to his own room to have a bath or a shower or something to get rid of the sand and to change into clean clothes, but he's taken my key so he'll be back in a minute, then we're going down to the restaurant to eat, not having room service.

"So, what was that all about last night?"

"Yeah, I'm sorry about that, I was a bit hammered that's all. I'd been drinking Tequila and you know what I'm like. Listen mate, I'll be back at work on Wednesday so we can go to " _The Duck_ " after if you like and I'll fill you in, all about everything" Oh shit, what the hell made me say that? now she's going to expect me to tell her stuff and I can't or I don't know what to tell her, cos I'm not sure what's going on myself.

OGOGOGOGOG

"Are you going to eat your supper like that? Because if you are I think we'd be better having room service" I'd dried my hair and put on a bit of slap, but I hadn't actually had time to get dressed so was still wearing my black lace bra and nothing else except knickers "Oh bugger it, let's just have room service"

"I'm hungry"

"So am I"

It was more than an hour before we made it downstairs to eat and by the time we did there wasn't any view because it was now pitch dark outside. Mind you, I don't think either of us cared very much and I'm pretty sure that if everyone else in the dining room took one look at us they'd be able to tell from the smile on my face and the smirk on his exactly what we'd been up to.

"I was talking to Cherry earlier"

"Did you tell her about us?"

"No, I didn't know what to tell her"

"Why not? Just tell her the truth; we're not a secret are we?"

OGOGOGOGOG

 **Author's notes: Thank you for your reviews. I hope you enjoyed this even though it's probably a bit nearer to the knuckle than the stuff I usually write, but as it was all from Molly's point of view, I felt that she probably wouldn't be shy and retiring about what happened and how she felt about it….**

Chapter 10 will be the last chapter …..


	10. Chapter 10

God, I can't believe how weird this feels, I haven't slept in this bunk bed for years, and it used to be Bella in the one up above, but now it's Jade cos Bella and her old man and Archie, her little boy, have moved into their own flat. Jade is up the spout again, silly girl, I don't think she even knows who the dad is this time, or she won't say, but it's not the same bloke as Warren's, her first, that's for sure. I want to tell her to keep her bloody legs crossed in the future or at least use something while she waits for someone who'll put a ring on her finger, rather than just knocking her up and then pissing off and leaving her to get on with it, but I don't think she'll listen to me, she'd more than likely say I'm just being a smug cow because I've got a ring on mine, or I will have tomorrow.

I still find it hard sometimes to believe that this seriously fit bloke, the way he looks and the way he is, who's not a fuckwit and who isn't just taking the piss, wants to be with me and not just in bed. He keeps saying as how he doesn't want me to change but that he wishes I would stop putting myself down all the time, but I'm not. It's just that I know me better than he does and I know all the things I think and feel that I don't share with anyone, not even him, well especially not him, but knowing who I am is not putting myself down, is it?

I'm only here because Mum and Nan insisted, said I couldn't sleep with him the night before our wedding, but I don't see why not. This'll be the first night we've slept apart since Sandbanks and I'm not sure I'll be able to sleep and Charles obviously can't, cos he's already sent me three texts tonight whinging about how much he hates being on his own and how much he misses me and how his mum and dad are driving him nuts and how glad he is that they're only stopping at ours for the one night. Considering how Mum and Nan were so arsey about me being on the shelf, you'd think that they'd have been happier about us getting married, I thought they'd be over the sodding moon, but Mum keeps on that because he's so posh and that it's so rushed that everyone's gonna think it's a forced do, especially as it's in a Registry Office, but I'm not pregnant, or at least I'm pretty sure I'm not. I know I'm not the most reliable about remembering to take my pill, but even that doesn't matter, it wouldn't make any odds because that's not the reason we're getting married. I wish Mum and Nan would just see him as the bloke that I love and the bloke who loves me and not as some sort of sodding posh celebrity who's somehow doing me a favour by marrying me. Dad, of course, couldn't give a toss about any of it, as long as it doesn't cost him any beer money, and it won't because Charles is paying for everything or as he keeps saying, _we_ are paying, so it's all okay as far as Dad's concerned.

Waking up wrapped round him that first morning after we got together, I suddenly thought how happy I was and how happy we were going to be as long as I could stop worrying everything to bloody death and just enjoy it and him. He didn't want to do the book signing in Poole, said he was bored shitless with doing them and would much rather stay in bed and play all day, so I had to bribe him, it was supposed to be my job to get him there after all, mind you the bribe turned out to be just as much fun for me as it was for him. We didn't go straight back to London after Poole, I had my two days off cos I'd worked the weekend and he had nothing booked, so we stayed down there for an extra couple of days and I rang Cherry to tell her all about it and to get her to spread the gossip at work. Once she'd stopped screeching about what a bloody lucky cow I am, and how it wasn't fair, she said she'd already had a sort of idea which way the wind was blowing, but I'm not sure she's telling the truth, she'd never said a dicky bird to me before.

Going in the office on my own on my first day back was really sort of horrible, I was so nervous because I didn't know what people were going to say, or what was going to happen, I honestly thought that they would laugh at the thought of him wanting to be with me and I wasn't sure whether Geoff would be mad or even fire me, but of course that didn't happen. Apart from anything else they wouldn't want to piss Charles off. He's proving to be a great meal ticket; his first book is still top of the Times list, and I still haven't read it, and his second is due for release next week… I'm pleased to say that the advance reviews are magic, because he'd most likely be bloody hurt if anyone said anything shitty and I'd hate that, and the advance orders are huge. He's just started on his third, because he says he's going to have to write at least two a year if he's ever going to make enough money to buy me my house in Sandbanks, but I think that might still be out of our league, just a bit, and anyway I don't give a shit where we live, as long as he's there it'll do me. And we can always go there for holidays.

At the moment we're living in this flat in Hampstead, which he loves and I think is okay, and we can at least park here, which was more than we could in any of the places we looked at in Soho. He said he wanted to make me happy, and we obviously couldn't share my hovel in Brixton cos it was far too small, well my flat wasn't a hovel but even I had to admit that the street and the building were a bit iffy, and he was staying in this serviced studio flat in Wapping on a short rental thingy, but it was very titchy and very, very bleeding expensive. We started looking at places like Dean Street which I loved, but Charles absolutely hated, he kept saying that much as he loves me and wants to make me happy, he weren't going to live anywhere where he'd worry about the kerb crawlers every time I went out or that some bastard would mistake me for a hooker.

Jane said she was a bit confused about all the shit that had gone down with Steve, that she'd thought I was engaged to him, then I wasn't anymore and then I was with Charles, so I sort of lied and blamed Chantal, said she'd exaggerated stuff because she was a jealous cow, which was sort of true, but not totally. I'm sure that Jane remembers that I never put her right when she first mentioned my so-called 'engagement' to Steve, but she's obviously decided that it wouldn't be worth saying nothing about that, so she's let it go. I do love Jane because I think she understands me and there are not many people who do. God, I always thought that I was a shit liar, that everyone could see straight through me but I'm beginning to think I could get quite good at it, become a proper PR girl.

Mitch got together with Cherry to do a press release about us getting married, sometimes I find it hard to remember that Charles is so famous that people outside the family are interested, but I'm not bleeding kidding myself that anyone is interested in me or who I am. One person who was interested in talking to me was bloody Steve. I was really bothered when he called, I hadn't heard from him since before Sandbanks, so I thought he'd called to blag some cash off me or something if he thinks I'm going to be with someone who's got a few bob, but that wasn't it at all. He was actually quite nice, said he'd missed me and had made a real mistake when he'd walked. I did something really dumb and agreed to meet him for a drink, I mean, I knew I shouldn't, I don't even think I wanted to really, but I was still finding things hard to believe, so I sort of expected it all to go down the bog at any minute.

OGOGOGOGOG

I don't know who told him but some bugger must have seen us and opened their big trap, I just hope that it wasn't Cherry or one of my other mates. He wouldn't say who, just that he was really hurt, so that I got all angry which I think was most likely because I felt so guilty. Not that I did anything to be guilty about, I mean it was just a drink in a pub in Soho, I never touched him, not even a kiss, I didn't want to, but I lied to Charles about where I was going and who I was going with. I don't know why I did that, except that I was shit scared and panicking that when he and I weren't anything anymore, I would need to start over and how the hell was I going to do that if all my mates had moved on?

"Why, why him Molly?"

"Because I wanted to, that's why" I could hear my voice, all stroppy and harsh and I didn't mean it, so why the fuck was I being like this? "Why are you making such a bleeding fuss? It was nothing, just a drink, just a drink in a pub with an old mate, nothing else"

"If that's all it was, why did you lie?"

"I dunno, cos maybe that's what I wanted to do, because that's what I do sometimes" I couldn't believe what I was saying, what he was making me say, and that now I was blaming him for what I was saying and for what I'd done. I just wanted to stop, to back down, to say I was sorry and that I didn't mean any of it, that I loved him for fuck's sake. I think that's been my problem, that I'm scared to admit that I've never quite believed in 'us', that I've been waiting for him to get pissed off and find himself another Chantal.

"I thought you loved me, that we love each other, and that's why we're getting married so that we can be together, but if you don't want that, you've got to say, Molls, you can't just carry on and marry me because you said you would"

"I'm sorry"

"What? You don't want to marry me, is that what you're sorry about?"

"No, that's not it, of course I want to marry you, I love you and I'm really, really sorry, so stop being nice to me. I don't know what gets into me, you know better than anyone that I can be a real fuck muppet sometimes. Tell me who told you, who stirred it? I need to know if it was one of my mates, don't I? Mind you I didn't think any of them knew, it wasn't such a big deal that I told anyone"

"Steve did, he rang me"

"Steve? Why the fuck would he do that?"

"Maybe to get me back for calling him pond scum and pushing him over, then nicking his girlfriend"

"You didn't nick me, I never _belonged_ to him. Did you tell him I said he was crap in bed?"

"Hardly, I wasn't going to talk about you being in bed with him, was I? I hate the thought"

"I would have done, it would have served him right, trouble making little sod"

"Yeah I know you would"

"And he still owes me a shed load of money"

"Shall I go and beat it out of him?"

"No, come and give me a hug instead"

OGOGOGOGOG

Tomorrow, which is four months to the day since I met him in the _Duck_ ; we're going to Hampstead Registry Office to get married. Bella and Cherry are going to be our witnesses, sort of bridesmaids, sort of, but Jade didn't want to do it. I know that's mainly because of her belly and that she doesn't want to talk about it when people ask her, I just wish I could make things better for her but I can't.

I have tried to get a bit more fit because I know how bloody fit he is, and no, I haven't been to sodding Yoga again, I can't believe that something that made me feel so crap was good for me, although I know it is, and I really admire Cherry because she stuck with it and even I can see that it's helping her. I have tried a bit of running on the Heath, although not with Charles. I did try that once but I don't think an oxygen mask in one hand and a bar of chocolate in the other looks quite right, so I do a little bit of gentle jogging on me own, and that means that I can stop and walk when I get a bit puffed. Anyhow I keep telling Charles that I'm sure I'll get faster and go a bit further when I've had a bit more practice, and that some exercise has got to be better than none, but he laughed at me and told me that I'm supposed to keep on going when I get puffed. The trouble is I hate the sweaty look, not on him mind, that's a whole different ball bag, but on me? no thanks. I'm still eating so-called crap for breakfast as well.

Charles' parents have come up from Bath for the wedding, I've only met them the once before and if they're as bloody disappointed in his choice of bride as I thought they were going to be, they've hid it really well. Mind you they are so proud of him that you'd think he could walk on water and I think we have that in common so maybe that's why they've been so nice to me, welcoming me to their family 'n that. His mum told me all about how horrible and scary it was when he got shot and I've obviously seen his scars so I'm as glad as she is that he isn't in the sodding army anymore.

The first time I really saw his scars, well the one on his stomach mostly, was the first night we was together, after we'd got back from the sand dunes I mean, I didn't notice when we was actually in the dunes, I think I must have been thinking about something else at the time. I wanted to cry when I saw how some bastard had hurt him like that, but I managed not to because I was suddenly a bit worried that he was going to think I was some sort of nut job, always turning on the waterworks.

I know I'm not perfect, even though he keeps telling me that I am, but I do know one thing and that is that I love him, and I know that he loves me and that tomorrow is going to be the happiest day of my life, but when I told him that, he said 'ditto', which saved him from having to think for himself what to say, lazy bugger.

OGOGOGOGOG

 **Author's notes: Thank you for your lovely reviews and I hope that you all enjoyed this finale. I have given a bit of thought to the suggestions that some of you would like to see the story from Charles' p.o.v., and may play about with that, but I wouldn't want anything to be repetitive, so am not promising anything until I've looked at it.**

 **I have some thoughts about doing "A matter of luck" series 2, so will probably do that next, but I would like to know what you think.**


	11. Chapter 11

**Author's Notes: This is a bit of a flier. I decided that I would try out a Charles p.o.v., so did it late yesterday afternoon and evening while it was still fresh and bashing away at my brain. Obviously as a first chapter I wouldn't normally publish till I'd got the rest in shape, but I wanted some feedback as to whether to continue with this, even up to the wedding maybe?**

 **By the way, for anyone who doesn't know, or has forgotten, POETS day is "Piss off Early, Tomorrow's Saturday"**

OGOGOG

"Let's go for a quiet pint" he said. God, if that's Tom's idea of a quiet drink I'd hate to see what he thinks of as a noisy or a crowded pub. Christ alive, I know its Friday and Friday is POETS day in offices, and that it's a point of honour for all office workers to apparently go out and get blitzed on Fridays, but I reckon this lot are more dedicated to their cause than most of the squaddies I've known, not to mention the officers, who were usually far worse.

I'd been waiting to get served for more than ten minutes, and I was actually on the point of giving it up as a bad job, when this little girl who'd been standing next to me and who'd been waiting even longer than I had, she was already there when I got to the front, finally managed to get served. I moved a bit to make some room for her to get out of the crush, I hoped that if I made a bit of space it would mean that one of the bloody bar staff would eventually stop ignoring me, I mean I'm not exactly small, and that it would finally be my turn to get served and I'd get a beer. I got a beer alright, but it was all down my legs, she'd tipped it all over me, from my bloody groin to my shoes, clumsy little so and so, … although to be fair I don't actually think it was her fault, or that she meant to do it, I'm sure that she hadn't queued up all that time just to tip the bloody stuff all over me, so I think someone must have pushed her or jogged her.

When I first stood next to her she had her back to me and I'd thought she was just a kid, a teenager with loads of long hair, barely old enough to be in a pub for God's sake, mainly because she was so small, especially if you compare her to girls like Chantal. When she looked up at me and said 'shit' with an expression of sheer horror on her face, all I could see were these amazingly beautiful eyes, huge and sort of greenish grey like the sea in midwinter, and I could see that she wasn't a kid at all, she was nearer to twenty something, probably mid-twenties and very, very pretty. She said 'sorry' but she certainly didn't sound it, she sounded more like she was trying not to laugh and looking down at her I felt this sort of a jolt, almost like an electric shock as I made a space for her to walk away and tried unsuccessfully to think of something to say that would stop her doing just that, then realised that Lady Luck was bloody smiling on me. She'd left her keys behind on the bar giving me the perfect excuse to turn this into my lucky day and get her name and, with an even more massive bit of luck, her phone number.

It was only when I'd pushed through the crowd with a refill for her beer and her keys that I saw who she was drinking with and then I really couldn't believe my luck, this day was getting better and better all the time, well apart from the bloody state of my jeans of course which were earning me some very odd looks. Normally I'd have just pushed off, gone home, certainly wouldn't have stayed in there looking as though I'd left it too late or was too pissed to get to the Gents, something that's never happened to me, even at the very worst platoon booze-ups, although I've known plenty who wouldn't be able to say that, but I wasn't going to leave without finding out who she was if I could. Then, there she was in front of me drinking with that Cherry from the publishers, the plump little PR girl that I've just spent two whole days talking to and they look like they're good friends. The really good news is that I don't have to try and find out anything about her right now, it may not be the best time to have a go at chatting her up anyway, but I can ask Cherry all about her next Monday when Chantal and I go in to arrange this bloody pain in the bum personal appearance stuff they say I've got to do, these book signing things. Well I can ask Cherry as long as I can escape from Chantal's clutches long enough to have a conversation with some other girl. It's beginning to drive me nuts the way Chantal feels the need to hold my hand all the time, so that I'm actually quite surprised to find myself in a pub without her monitoring my every move.

I saw them leave, so Tom and I followed them out to try and get a taxi so that I could spare my blushes, there was no way I could go home to Wapping using public transport, I had a feeling that it was going to be hard enough to get a taxi to take me, and I already felt like a leper from the people in the pub moving away from me, and a bloody incontinent leper at that. She was still outside the pub and she and Cherry were holding onto each other and absolutely cracking up with laughter. Much as I hate to admit it, and I suppose I could be wrong but I don't think so, I'm pretty sure that I was the subject of the joke, which I didn't enjoy very much, but I also have to be bloody honest and admit that if I had been in their shoes I would probably have been doing exactly the same thing.

I wrote my book about Afghanistan when I was in a hospital bed trying to recover from some bastard insurgent shooting me. It was touch and go for a bit, well, so my mother tells me, and apparently when it seemed likely that I was going to live, that my stomach wound wasn't going to kill me after all, that it was possible that I might have to learn to live without my left leg. Well, I kept my leg and lost my livelihood, my career, I became just another injured officer on the army scrapheap, unfit to serve any more, no more use to the fucking army, well only to sit behind a desk and that wasn't for me, and bloody hell was I bitter? Looking back, I was actually pretty obnoxious for a while, I don't know how mum and dad put up with me, but writing the book helped, it helped a lot, well I think it saved my sanity.

It was quite easy to find a literary agent who was willing to take me on, Chantal, well it was very easy actually, because it was the first outfit I'd sent the manuscript off to, which was very flattering and made me feel a whole lot better about myself and the future. Then there was a hell of a lot of farting about with editing and re-writing bits and proof reading and photographs and stuff, but in the end I was over the moon when she told me that she'd set up this deal for me with an American publishing house, and that she'd decided to plump for a one book deal so that I would be free to renegotiate later. I never really asked her why she chose America, but we moved up another gear and I jetted off there immediately; too bloody grateful and excited that anyone liked it enough to publish it to think of questioning any of it.

The book went down unbelievably well in the States, I sold an incredible number of copies, and topped the bestsellers' lists and spent a lot of time and effort promoting it by appearing on television, which took some getting used to, believe me, on what they call coast to coast networks. It was all very exciting and I was absolutely bloody thrilled when Chantal negotiated a film deal, it was almost fucking surreal, and worth more money than I could have imagined in my wildest dreams. I've never actually heard of most of the people in the cast, okay, none of them if I'm being honest, but that's because I'm not really up with that sort of stuff, but Chantal is. I just hope they're English, or at least sound it, and that they're not septic tanks.

What I really wanted was to get published here, at home, where I come from, where my parents and friends live, and where all my old army mates are, especially my old cockwombles from Afghan, a hell of a lot of them feature pretty heavily in the book and some of them will even enjoy their name checks, and this is what is happening right now, and I am beyond happy about it.

What I'm a bit concerned about though is my relationship with Chantal. I'm in awe of how smart she is, both her brains and the way she looks. She's very good looking, tall and slim and super fit, _sleek_ with beautiful blonde hair and she's always wonderfully well groomed, but I find it hard now to remember exactly why I got so involved with her, no, that's not true, I got involved because I wanted to sleep with her even though in my heart of hearts I knew there was something missing. I know I was lonely and homesick, or rather I was still missing the army and my old mates, and I was drinking far too much. It sounds like excuses but she's bloody attractive and she definitely wanted me, she didn't bother to hide it which was such a turn-on in itself, on top of which I relied on her a hell of a lot for company, but it really was a dreadfully stupid and selfish thing to do.

Things have been bloody awkward between us since we returned to the U.K. She wanted us to move in together, which was fair enough in the circumstances I suppose, but something made me say no, it wouldn't have been fair when what I really wanted to do was distance myself from her. I don't love her and I don't want to live with her, or, if I'm being honest, even sleep with her anymore and I feel like a complete shit. There have been times recently when she's been particularly possessive and controlling, when she appears so reluctant to let me out of her sight that I find myself not even liking her very much anymore. Trying to hang onto me like that isn't going to change anything about the way I feel, I know she knows that we're over but I don't want to hurt her, hurting her is the last thing I want to do, I know how much I owe her. It's not her fault that I don't love her, even if I once thought there was a chance of a future, but it is totally 100% my fault that I've allowed things to get so fucking complicated.

Apparently I have to do these book signings, make personal appearances in some of the best book shops to promote the book and I'll have to sit there all day and autograph copies, making personal dedications if that's what people want. Christ alive, I'm dreading it. I have this fucking nightmare of sitting in the middle of a shop, surrounded by piles of books without a single person wanting to buy one or wanting my autograph. I'm tempted to ask mum to come to the first one and bring everyone she bloody knows with her.

OGOGOGOG

Monday morning and Chantal and I have an early morning meeting with this Geoff, the boss at the publishers, well he called it early, in army terms at 9.00 it's mid-morning, and I was very lucky to find a parking space immediately, almost unheard of in London. Apparently we're here to sort out the details of my first personal appearance which is here in London next weekend and shit, I'm still fucking dreading it, in fact the closer it gets, the worse it gets, even though Geoff, who seems like a decent sort of bloke, tells me that one of his experienced PR staff will be with me and will look after me, will hold my hand through it. Talking about PR staff, I'm determined to find Cherry and talk to her before I leave, God knows what I'm going to say to Chantal to get her to sod off for a few minutes, but I'll cross that bridge when I get to it.


	12. Chapter 12

I'd gone from dreading this to thinking it could be well be a lot of fun; but who'd have thought that just sitting at this little table getting writer's cramp and smiling and saying 'hello' and 'thank you' to an endless stream of people, mostly women of my mother's generation, could be so bloody tiring. And to think I was afraid that no-one would turn up! Mind you, if I'm tired, and I am, Christ knows what Molly is feeling, she must be exhausted because she's been standing up all day handing out books and smiling at people, and now she keeps standing on one leg, then swapping them over as if her feet hurt. I know that Geoff said she was an old hand at it, but all the same, bloody hell. I didn't even get a chance to talk to her at lunchtime which I was hoping to do, the Book Department Manager here insisted on buying me lunch, which was very nice of him, but when I looked for her, Molly had vanished.

OGOGOGOGOG

I couldn't wipe the smile off my face when 'green eyes' marched into Geoff's office breathing fire because I'd nicked her parking space; she was even smaller and prettier than I remembered, but she was swearing like a bloody trooper, it was just like being back in barracks. You could have warmed your hands on her face when she realised that Geoff wasn't on his own, that she had an audience, and she was so embarrassed when she saw who the audience was that I couldn't stop laughing, although Chantal wasn't a bit amused and immediately did that hand on thigh thing that pisses me off so much. God, I wish she wouldn't do it, I can't very well push her hand away in front of people, although I must admit I'm tempted, but I've told her over and over again not to do it. Green eyes' name is Molly, Molly Dawes, and I suppose if I'd been thinking straight on Friday, I would have guessed where she works, it's bloody obvious really, why else would she have been in that pub with Cherry on a Friday afternoon?

It was getting better all the time, because apparently she's going to be my 'minder' next weekend, although if I was being honest I'd have to say that she'd looked pretty dubious about it, not exactly thrilled at the prospect, but not half as dubious as Chantal, she was just plain bloody rude and pretended not to notice when Molly went to shake her hand. Little Miss Potty Mouth immediately retaliated with some crap about how she was really looking forward to doing it, which I'm bloody sure was designed to piss Chantal off, and the way she said it made it so plain that it was a lie that even I could see it, but for some reason it made me start looking forward to the whole thing; she just reminds me of the times, seems several lifetimes ago now, when I used to have fun.

OGOGOGOGOG

Chantal turning up at the signing put the mockers on the vague plan I had of inviting Molly for a drink when we'd finally finished. I thought she'd earned it and that it would be fun, and that I'd earned it too, for keeping that 'pleased to meet you' smile on my face all sodding day. Bloody Chantal has agreed for us to go out to eat with Tom and his 'researcher', Emily. Researcher is an interesting description of Emily's, well, Tom calls them her duties, but if I was married to Tom's wife, Pamela, I'd probably have a 'researcher' as well. His wife is an M.P., and is one very scary woman who, according to Tom, listens far too much to the spin doctors so that she doesn't wear make-up or have her hair done, she even cuts it herself, or smile or dress up or anything, and believe me it might be an idea if she did. It would certainly make her look less fierce, while Emily is tall and blonde and pretty, and again according to Tom, bloody brilliant in bed. Tom is the sort of bloke my dad calls dick-lead.

I offered to help Molly sort the stuff out when we'd finished, but she threw a bit of a strop, and I might be wrong but I've got this funny feeling that it was because Chantal had shown up and had immediately started doing her best to make Molly feel that she was in the way. I know I shouldn't laugh when someone's in a huff, especially if it's partly my fault that they're in that huff, but I can't help having this suspicion that jollying Miss Dawes, Molly, out of her bad moods could be something that I'd really enjoy, that it would be a lot of fun.

OGOGOGOGOG

The disappointment was dreadful. Hardly knowing her at all didn't make it any easier, I felt so badly let down that I wanted to lash out so I found myself lecturing her as though she was a bloody squaddie and I was back to being Officer in Charge. With hindsight I'm not surprised she told me to fuck off, but even now I still can't quite believe that all that last night was a coincidence, especially as Chantal came clean and admitted that she'd probably let it slip where we were eating and who with. The fact that I saw Molly there, before she turned and slunk away, and that she has a boyfriend who is one of the pond scum felt like a kick in the guts and made it impossible for me to believe her when she kept insisting that she had nothing to do with the paparazzi lying in wait for Tom and catching him with Emily. Tom's behaviour might make him a target, the stupid sod has really only got himself to blame that he's been busted, constantly denying something that was as plain as the nose on his face wasn't too clever, but the stuff he spouted about Afghan couldn't have come at a better time for me and coincided nicely with my book release, so I feel as though I owe him, but that doesn't mean I want the scum to start looking at me.

By the time we finished this afternoon Molly and I weren't even on speaking terms, let alone going for a quick drink terms, and Chantal had very wisely kept away, so it is only now, when I'm trying hard to avoid the temptation of yet another large scotch, that I'm beginning to wonder if I got it right. She kept looking up at me with those amazing eyes and I'd swear they filled up with tears at one point, and she was swearing blind that she'd never even heard of Tom, let alone Pamela and Emily, that she hadn't got a fucking clue who they all were, or where we were going to eat, and cared even less, so that now I think I believe her and I'm beginning to wonder just who was telling lies.

No matter what Chantal thinks, it's not that I fancy Molly, I don't, I'm not trying to get in her knickers or anything. Okay, I'm not blind, I can see that she's bloody gorgeous, but I definitely don't need the complication of getting involved with another woman, especially one that I feel might be a bit vulnerable under all that hard shell, but I'm still trying to extricate myself from a relationship that has gone down the shitter and I'm not dick-lead like Tom. It feels like a very long time since I had any sort of fun and I think, no, I'm bloody sure, that she would be fun to spend time with. Christ, I'm not that old, yeah all right I'm past 30, but I don't feel old and it feels like forever, years and years in fact, since my life got so intense and unremittingly serious that I had no time or space to just laugh and enjoy myself. I really fucked things up today, so I'm not sure if I can repair the damage, except by asking Geoff if she can come to Scotland as my 'nanny' and then doing my best to put things right.

OGOGOGOGOG

Wow, does she know how to sulk? I always thought it was one of my major talents, just ask my parents, but I'm a bloody amateur compared to her. It'll take us nearly five hours to get to Edinburgh and it's beginning to look as though she's going to spend the whole journey pretending to look at the non-existent view. A bit of me is tempted to see how long she can keep it up, to keep quiet myself, but that's assuming she's doing it for effect and she might not be, it might well be that she really has no intention of speaking to me at all for the next three days.

It feels like a real kick in the balls and I have got no idea why. I know she's got a boyfriend who is one of the pond scum who earn their living screwing up other people's lives for money, she told me about him last Sunday, but a boyfriend is one thing, being engaged and marrying him is something else entirely. I don't know why it matters so much, why it feels like such a body blow, I mean I hardly know her and she is nothing to me. In a few day's time we'll finish in Scotland then go back to London and go our separate ways, get on with our real lives. Chantal and I will be off to the States for a couple of weeks, and when I get back I can ask for a different minder for the rest of the book tour, and she'll get on with whatever is next for her, marrying Steve apparently, and it's none of my fucking business, any of it, so why do I want to scream 'NO'?

I don't want her to see how I feel about it, it _really_ isn't any of my business and she's probably already got me pegged as some sort of bossy bastard, I mean look at the way I behaved last weekend. I can't help laughing at the expression on her face, the assumed mask of innocence, at least I think that's what it's supposed to be, as she looked at me all serious, apparently, and smiled her sweetest smile, the one that is so fucking transparent, and tried her absolute best to avoid admitting that she hasn't even read my book, the one that she's busting a gut trying to promote. I was still laughing as I started to tell her all about Afghan and being in the army out there, I mean she asked me to, and then I was transported back to when it felt as though we were doing something worthwhile, before it all went to shit. I was so lost in my memories that it took a while to realise that I was wasting my breath, that she had stopped listening to me and was actually fast asleep. I don't know how long after she dropped off that I did, or how long I was out for, but when I woke up she was wide awake and looking at me, and I found myself smiling at her as my brain started to scream a warning to be very, very careful, that my life was already fucking complicated enough.

OGOGOGOGOG

 **Author's notes: Thank you for your support for me continuing with this and for the lovely reviews, I hope you enjoyed this chapter. It will probably take a few days before I update again, I really prefer to write the whole thing in one go, then do the daily updates, but I just thought I would get going with this today.**

 **I am also playing around with A Matter of Luck part 2 but it will follow this otherwise I'm going to get the 2 scenarios confused.**


	13. Chapter 13

"Why do you always think the worst of me?"

Perhaps because I'm sure she's lying when she said that she actually enjoyed that, the walk I mean, she's got that super innocent look on her face that I don't quite trust, although it sounded almost like she was flirting with me. One thing I do know is that I haven't laughed like that for, well it feels like forever, but then it is almost forever since I spent time with someone who doesn't want or expect anything from me.

I wasn't quite sure what was so funny about large middle-aged American men, and a hell of a lot of the women, who were let's face it, fat, wearing deeply unflattering tartan trousers or pants as they call them, but Molly thought it was hysterical, not that they were fat, but that they were wearing hideous trousers that emphasised it. We went for a walk up the Royal Mile to the castle after an early supper, along with half the population of Milwaukee or Detroit or somewhere else that was equally stridently American, all of whom seemed to be congregating in large and very loud groups on the pavement or sidewalk as they call it. The upshot was that everyone else had to walk round them, which slowed us down even more than the fact that Molly is, and there's no getting away from it, a bit of a slowcoach. She kept complaining that I was trying to show that she's unfit, which she is, and that my legs are far too long for a normal sized person, by which I presume she means her, which they're definitely not, although if you compare the two of us, she maybe has a point. She is tiny, almost doll sized and I had to keep reminding myself that she is nowhere near as tall as Chantal and would have difficulty keeping up with her, let alone me.

I kept walking off in front of her, then turning round and walking backwards and laughing at her as she tried to catch up with me, until she got her own back and started to window shop instead, so that I had to turn round and walk back to her to make sure we didn't get separated by the septic tanks. She had no clue what they were and giggled for ages when I explained it was an army term for yanks, so she then spent the next ten minutes educating me in the use of some of her cockney rhyming slang, which, to put it mildly, was so bloody obscure that I began to wonder if she was making it up as she went along.

I came very close to kissing her goodnight when we got back to the hotel, well pecking her on the cheek, which, if I use the logical part of my brain, would be an absolute disaster; we've got back on track from the mess of last Sunday, so why would I even think of risking fucking everything up again?

OGOGOGOGOG

I wanted to tell her that that's what happens to you when you eat crap for breakfast as I watched her struggle to control the need to yawn that was making her eyes water, but I resisted the temptation because I can remember, just vaguely, how horrendous it feels to have the drop in adrenaline that makes you feel like shit, like you have to close your eyes and sleep, even if it's just for a few minutes. She can't curl up here and have a nap, so some caffeine and even more sugar and some fresh air will keep her going, but I thought Geoff said she was used to this.

No wonder she's not very fit if she eats a bowl of sugar for breakfast, most girls I know would run away screaming at the thought, but Molly almost stuck her tongue out at me when I said how bad it was for her, alright maybe not literally, but you could see the thought written all over her face. I got the impression that as far as she was concerned I could go and sit somewhere else if I didn't like it! She retaliated by taking the piss out of me for drinking really strong black coffee and like a moron I said my usual about needing it to be a fully functioning soldier, then felt the god-awful pain of loss and the feeling of emptiness, as she joked about me not even being a soldier anymore. Jesus, I thought I was over all that. Stealing a mouthful of her breakfast, which actually tasted pretty damned good, helped me gloss over the moment but I'm beginning to wonder if there'll ever come a time when it will lose the power to hurt so badly.

OGOGOGOGOG

I took the idea of another walk with Molly off the agenda for after supper, I had a lot of calls to make and anyway, I need to stay away from her a bit. My sense of self-preservation has kicked in and it's telling me that enjoying someone's company a little bit too much is a sure-fire recipe for generally fucking things up again, and I've done more than enough of that recently. I need a clear head while I make decisions on what comes next for me. She was talking to bloody Steve when I got back to the lounge after making my calls, although why that should annoy me I don't know, she's engaged to him for God's sake, so it's hardly surprising that she's going to want to talk to him while she's here and he's at home. I tried to be polite and left to give her some space to be private, and then asked about him, but she coloured up and obviously wanted to avoid the subject, I wonder why? Although it was ditto for me and Chantal actually, who Molly seems to have re-christened as Cheryl for some reason, and then was totally convinced that I was lying when I insisted that Chantal is her real name.

She told me tonight that her usual book signings are much more fun than being with me because she doesn't do famous so they have a laugh and that's why she's not used to standing for hours while a steady stream of people queue up, and I found myself admitting, at the risk of sounding like an ungrateful bastard, and for the first time to anyone, even my mum, that I don't really like being well known, being recognised, in fact I think I could come to hate it. When I wrote the book I didn't really think about who might buy it, but I assumed that it would be a largely male audience, it never occurred to me that it would appeal to so many women, even though I presume that a lot of them have bought it for their husbands or partners, or dads even. Chantal's theory made me sweat a bit with embarrassment, I mean I know I'm not hideous or anything, but Jesus, I'm not George Clooney either.

OGOGOGOGOG

Molly is apparently quite happy for me to piss off to Liverpool on the way home; a night out with the lads is something I can really look forward to during another long day of smiling, this time in Glasgow. I'm a bit bothered about her travelling back on her own and suggested that she should ask Steve to meet her. If I was engaged to her I wouldn't want her travelling across London late at night on her own, but the suggestion that she couldn't look after herself and that she needed some bloke to do it for her didn't exactly go down well, and then she totally refused to eat in a sushi bar, insisting that I was taking the piss by expecting her to eat raw fish, which I wasn't, and not being sure whether to believe me or not when I suggested buying Jane a haggis, when I was. We ended up eating in a burger bar, who says I don't know how to have a good time, and then going for a long stroll in Kelvingrove Park, talking and laughing and just enjoying the place, which really is very beautiful, full of statues, a bandstand, a lake, the whole works.

Taking the piss then calling her gullible for believing me when she was trying so hard to be sweet and to apologise sincerely for laughing at the state of me when I was wearing her beer over my crotch and legs meant that what happened next was totally 100% my fault. Suddenly the urge to tease, to laugh at her or with her just vanished and the urge to kiss her was overwhelming, so much for self-preservation. It had started to rain which was just as bloody well, because it acted like a cold shower which meant that I managed to stop before I really started. I knew what I'd done was unforgiveable, I mean she's engaged for fuck's sake, even if she doesn't seem very keen to talk about him, but then why the hell should she, it's got sod-all to do with me?

We stood in the reception absolutely soaked to the skin and dripping, and Molly was shivering and literally gasping for breath, God she's unfit, I'd held her hand and pulled her along but she'd looked as though she was going to expire so I was tempted to offer to carry her, except that I didn't fancy the knee in the balls that I was sure I'd get for my trouble. And then there she was, waiting for me. Bloody Chantal. All perfumed and polished and sleek and beautiful, very Chantal at her best, but what the fuck did she think she was doing just turning up? Getting on a bloody train or a plane and travelling all the way up here without telling me she was coming, and she must have asked Jane where we were staying, because she certainly didn't ask me. I know I swore that I wouldn't do anything to hurt her, that I wouldn't ever do anything that would make it seem as if I'd just hopped from her bed straight into someone else's, and that's still not going to happen, but I want to scream that this won't make any difference, she's the wrong girl.

OGOGOGOGOG

I suppose I should be grateful to her for turning up the way she did, it stopped me making a monumental prize prick of myself over Molly, something I was in real danger of doing, but telling her that her pitching up looking to share my bed isn't going to change anything was difficult. Okay, so sharing the bed wasn't actually the problem, it's a super wide huge king size job, and I could hardly expect her to go and sleep somewhere else and I certainly wasn't going to sleep on the floor, but that was all that was going to happen, there wasn't going to be any 'one last time' or anything like that, sorry, but it is not going to happen. She accused me of sleeping with Molly, or rather wanting to sleep with her, which was pretty ironic in the circumstances; she'd just knackered any chance of that which was obviously just as well, so I told her about Molly's engagement to Steve. None of that had anything to do with my decision not to have sex with her again, we were over, had been for months and there was absolutely no point in keep trying to revive something that was completely gone.

She decided to fly home, and made a big thing about getting the first available seat on the shuttle which made me feel bad, but I didn't ask her to come all this way, definitely hadn't wanted her to, but I couldn't help feeling that it was all a bit sad, that what had started out so happily when we were on a high all those months ago in New York, had ended like this and it's all my fault. I knew from day one how it was going to be, well obviously not exactly where it was going to end or anything, but I knew we weren't going to be a 'till death us do part couple', and I'm pretty sure she did as well, but I feel now as if maybe I used her when I was lonely and homesick and I hate myself for it. Her parting shot was that we will have to re-evaluate our working relationship, which sounded pretty fucking ominous, but I do hope that she didn't intend it as a threat because I think I'm probably the wrong bloke to threaten.

OGOGOGOGOG

 **Author's notes: I'm struggling a bit with the news that the new series of OG will be without our Molly and I haven't seen anything definite about CJ, so what the **** do the Beeb think they're playing at? I shall continue with this even if it is all going to s**t in BBC land, it's going to take a while if they haven't started filming yet and for the moment I'll assume that we all still want to fantasise about the couple we know and love, no doubt the reviews will tell me if this isn't the case.**

 **I haven't finished the whole thing yet, but I decided to update anyway to get the feedback bearing the above news in mind.**


	14. Chapter 14

I know I promised to tell her why things with Chantal are complicated, I was going to do it last night after we got back from our walk in the sodding rain but the appearance of the lady herself put an end to that. I've been trying all day to get the peace and, I suppose, a bit of privacy to do it and now we're on the bloody train going home and I still haven't managed it. I know I said I was getting off at Crewe to go for a booze-up with the lads in Liverpool, but I hadn't known then that the train would be packed with football supporters, most of them seem cheerful enough, but they're all pissed and I don't like leaving Molly alone in the middle of them.

She doesn't want me to stay with her, keeps telling me to sod off, saying she'll be fine and insisting that a few drunks don't bother her and anyhow she's more than capable of taking care of herself, but I'm not a bit happy about it. Eventually I had to do as I was told, I couldn't keep arguing with her, even the drunks had started to notice and add their opinions, and then I could hear her voice loud and clear, well you could hardly mistake it, as she sorted out some chancers who'd seen me do what she wanted and leave.

"Nah sorry mate, I only go out with me own sort, you know human beings, and as for your mate, I thought he was me dad for a minute" so I have to assume that she's right and that she wasn't just saying it to make me feel better but I didn't want to get off that train, every bloody instinct I have was telling me to either go back and stay with her, to make sure nothing happened to her, or even better, to pull her off the train and take her to Liverpool with me. I can't do either; she'll end up telling me as well as him that I'm just like her dad.

My night out with the lads went pretty much as I expected it to and my hangover next morning was pretty spectacular as well, I haven't been out on the booze like that for a very long time, the evenings spent drinking in New York were almost tee-total by comparison. It didn't seem to matter how pissed I got though I couldn't get away from worrying about Molly the whole bloody time and had she got home safely? I really wished I'd thought to ask her to just text me when she got back. Mind you, it would probably have given her another chance to tell me to stop behaving as if I was her dad, but I still wish I'd done it.

OGOGOGOGOG

I met her for a bite after she finished work, I still hadn't told her about Chantal and I wanted to, although I couldn't actually see now why it seemed so important that she knew, it didn't make any difference to anything after all, but it was just that I'd made a promise and I needed to keep it. Mind you, I was a bit worried that she was pissed at me for some reason because I could hear it in her voice when I called her from Crewe and although she said everything was fine, she was still a bit narky when we were eating. The waitress, who was hanging around and making a bit of a fuss of me, was pissing her off big time, and God she can be feisty when she's bugged. I told her about Chantal, although not that I'd had a voice mail message from the lady waiting for me when I got back from Scotland saying we need to have a meeting to talk about the future as soon as possible. I have no idea what that means, whether she can fire me or anything when I have a contract and if she does whether I'm going to have to find someone else to represent me. We're supposed to be off to the States tomorrow, so this couldn't have happened at a worse time, but I suppose it serves me right for mixing business with pleasure, I can hear my dad now with his "Told you so" and he's right, he did, dammit!

Telling Molly about Chantal and how things are, or rather were, with her, even without this bloody meeting, I could hear myself beginning to sound as if I'm trying to get the stuff about Chantal out of the way so that I can ask Molly to think about me as someone to have a relationship with. I need to stop it, I don't get emotionally involved so even if I did manage to split her from Steve, which to be honest is what I'd love to do, nothing is going to happen between us, we're friends. I need to leave her alone, to stop thinking of trying to fuck up her life with him, to step back and let her get married and maybe have children, if that's what she wants and to stop being so sodding selfish otherwise I'll even lose her as a friend.

0GOGOGOGOG

My new agent is Mitch and she's brilliant, much closer to my mother's age than mine and very, very proud of her three grandchildren, which will make mum spit with envy if she ever gets to meet her. My contract meant that Chantal couldn't fire me even if she'd wanted to, and I think she did, but she handed me over to a colleague instead saying that she didn't want to work with me anymore, which, to be honest, was a huge relief. It meant that I went to the States on my own, and did the interviews and stuff for the launch of the James' saga part two, and did everything else I had to, albeit some of it a bit later than we'd originally scheduled. There weren't any problems, no-one asked any awkward questions about my agent, but it did mean that my trip to Exeter with Molly had to be postponed, which believe me wasn't such a bad thing, it gave me more time to distance myself and to try and stop myself thinking about her and Steve playing happy families.

OGOGOGOGOG

Bournemouth and Poole would probably be very nice in the summer, but I've got the feeling it's going to be pretty shit at this time of the year for going out for long walks in the evenings, so we probably won't, more's the pity. I knew the second I clapped eyes on her again, well even before that to be honest, that all those good resolutions didn't count for a bloody thing when she was sitting across from me on a train, reading what looks like an advance copy of part 2 and avoiding looking at me. I wanted to ask her to give me a chance, to take some time and think whether he's the right bloke for her, that I'd missed her badly when I was in the States and that I didn't mean a word of it when I told her I only wanted her as a friend, and more than anything else I wanted to kiss her. And I couldn't do any of that, could I?

Sandbanks is a very beautiful place and I could see why Molly said immediately that she'd changed her mind about where she most wanted to live, that Soho didn't seem nearly as nice anymore and then both of us, the taxi driver and I, laughed at the expression on her face when I told her how much a house costs, that I'd read it somewhere, and that actually it's more expensive to live in Sandbanks than in Central London.

The view from the hotel dining room was magic, you could see across to Studland Bay and Brownsea Island and the sea and the little ferry across the harbour mouth, but I wasn't looking at the view, I was watching her face all the time, wanting desperately to find something neutral to talk about, something that would make her relax and laugh, so that we could get back to the fun we had when we went to Edinburgh, before things got complicated. I'm not sure if it was her idea or mine that we started doing shots, I just know it felt like a great idea at the time and the way she giggled as I told her about America was very infectious, and I knew I was getting pissed, well we both were. She started telling me about trying to get fit by going to Yoga and even though she was laughing, how bloody awful it was, and I don't know what triggered the feeling I had that I didn't want to laugh any more, that I wanted, well I didn't know what exactly I wanted, but I didn't want her to try and change anything about herself, I needed to make sure that I told her that she's perfect just the way she is.

I shouldn't have touched her, I know it was only on her cheek but the feeling was so overwhelming that I had to take myself off to bed before I did something very, very stupid, something that I'd wanted to do for the last couple of hours, no, that's a bloody lie, for the last few weeks, well for almost as long as I'd known her, but definitely since we'd walked back from the castle in Edinburgh. I ended up deciding that even though I'd had a fair bit to drink, I was nowhere near drunk enough to stop myself knocking on her door so I drank a lot of the contents of the mini-bar, well not the gin or the rum but the whisky and the vodka, and I don't know whether I drank the brandy or spilt it, but the empty bottle was on the floor when I woke up this morning.

Mind you, describing it as waking up is a bit of an exaggeration, it was more like regaining consciousness; the booze I'd shipped last night acted like an anaesthetic and to say I was regretting it this morning would be an understatement. Everything hurt, even my teeth and I still had to go and sit in a sodding Book Shop all day smiling and breathing fumes over people and hoping that I didn't throw up on them or gas them with my morning after breath, well that's always supposing I can lift my head off the pillow without it exploding. The aftermath of my lads' night out in Liverpool was nothing compared to this and I've still got to shower, not only to help me surface, but also because I can smell myself and I stink; I can only hope that the aspirins and black coffee will stay down long enough to work before I have to go and find Molly and see what sort of state she's in this morning.

She doesn't look as though she feels quite a bad as I do, but maybe she stopped at Tequila and left the mini-bar alone, but neither of us look at our best exactly. She is very pale and heavy eyed and I have no idea how bad I look, I haven't actually checked, but if it's anything like the way I feel, I must look like shit.

Drinking gallons of water and peeing for Britain helped with the dizziness and the headache of being completely dehydrated; Molly seemed to be coping much better than I was. I am just beginning to feel a bit more human, but even so I am not sorry when its three thirty and we can smile nicely, say thanks very much and then bog off. It's a lovely afternoon, blue sky with just a few clouds, a bit cold and windy but at least it's not pissing down which it has been every other day we've been on this tour. I want to get changed and go for a walk, to get on the little ferry and go and explore Studland, go for a walk on the beach which will blow the hangover cobwebs away and I've decided that I have to ask Molly to maybe have another think about whether she really wants to marry Steve. I know it's a huge risk, that I could end up losing her friendship, but I'm not sure if I want to go on as we are.

OGOGOGOGOG

 **Author's notes: The consensus was to carry on, so that's what I'm doing. I'm not sure what I want now, the thought of another 5 hours of CJ watching is the sort of fantasy that dreams are made of, it's just that I can't bear the thought of him moving on from Molly, but I guess I mustn't pre-judge and I'll have to trust that TG won't do that to us.**

 **I hope that you enjoy this chapter, and you all know where the next one is leading.**


	15. Chapter 15

"Get off me"

She seemed to be in a complete strop about something which she said was all my fault. Alright, I probably shouldn't have put my arm round her like that, and I've said I'm sorry, but I thought we were getting on okay, well as okay as we could be, bearing in mind my stupidity last night and the self-inflicted injuries we've both been suffering from all day.

I was a bit concerned that I might still stink after our binge last night, or that maybe she's still pissed at me for what I said about her being perfect, even though she hasn't mentioned it, I mean, she can't still be unhappy about Chantal, so it's probably what I'm most afraid of and that it's more to do with me trying to pretend that Steve doesn't exist. The wind's blowing bloody hard off the sea and it's very parky on this beach so her hair is obviously annoying the hell out of her because it's blowing around like a flag and she keeps trying to smooth it and get it off her face, but actually she looks a lot better than she has done all day. It could be that the wind is bringing a bit of colour to her face or it might just be that she's in a foul temper, apparently with me. She doesn't want to be anywhere near me, and she wouldn't even hold my hand to climb into the dunes out of this god-awful wind so that we can more than likely have a bloody row, but I'm beginning to realise that a walk on the beach wasn't such a shit-hot idea after all.

We didn't have a row, but it turned out that she'd been convinced that Chantal had been in America with me, which serves me right for thinking she'd have heard from someone about what happened, that someone would have told her. It just goes to show that no-one actually cared, or thought it was important enough, for it to hit the gossip grapevine, so it serves me right for being such a bloody conceited bastard. I didn't want to tell her what we'd actually rowed about, Chantal and I, well I couldn't really, or why I hadn't told her all about it myself and definitely not why I'd walked off and gone to bed last night, I wanted to, of course I wanted to, but Steve keeps getting in the fucking way. As hard as I try I can't pretend he doesn't come into the picture, which is amazing really considering I don't even know what he looks like and I can't see me asking to see his photo any time soon, even though I'll bet she's got some on her phone.

I'm not sure I can believe that she'd got no idea what was going on in my head, I would have thought it was perfectly obvious. She apparently didn't know that I'd spent bloody hours trying not to think about her, or more especially her and Steve, and trying not to think about them spending all the time that she wasn't with me planning their sodding future, or just being together, and now she's telling me that none of it is true, that I've spent weeks thinking about something that didn't exist and it isn't that her engagement's been called off, it's that she was never engaged to him in the first place. I have no idea why she lied to me, not a clue, and when I asked her she said that she doesn't know either and I think I believe her, but I don't actually care why, I'm just really happy about it.

It started as a re-run of Glasgow, I was slightly unsure about kissing her, she might have still been bloody mad at me for whatever it was she was so upset about, but the way she wound her fingers in my hair and pulled my head towards her when I touched her lips told me everything that mattered. It may have started out as a gentle sort of 'question' kiss, but it very quickly became something else entirely as she kissed me back, something that I needed to slow down a bit before it got completely out of control.

"Not here"

It wasn't supposed to be like this, all that stuff I've been telling myself about wanting her to be my friend, about wanting nothing else from her, that her engagement was stopping me from wanting anything more, about needing to protect Chantal from being hurt, all those reasons I'd come up with for staying away were complete bollocks and I knew it, and if I was being honest I'd always known it. I've wanted to be with her, to make love to her, preferably in some nice warm hotel room or even better, in my flat, in a nice big comfortable bed, and I've had this, I don't know what to call it, dream I suppose, since almost the first moment I saw her, mind you I wasn't 100% certain it was ever going to happen. It was just that I wanted it very badly, especially since that kiss in the park in Glasgow. But I'd definitely never imagined kissing her to the point where there was this raw urgency and need, which actually felt mutual, on a bloody wind-swept beach, even in the shelter of the dunes, where someone could walk by or stumble across us at any second and where it was definitely too bloody cold and far too bloody public for anything more.

I needed to stop and pull myself together, well we both had to, so that we could walk back to the ferry and across to one of our nice warm hotel rooms with it's nice warm comfortable bed so that I could take off every stitch of her clothing and mine and touch her and kiss her and then make love to her making sure it was everything it should be, on top of which I'm pretty sure that there are some condoms lurking somewhere in my toilet bag. I didn't bring them on this trip specially or anything like that, I hope I'll never be that arrogant, it's just that they've been there ever since New York. She is incredibly beautiful, long dark curls all tangled by the wind and those eyes which are huge and such an amazing colour and she's tiny, very small and slight with a wonderful smile and is nothing like any girl I've ever kissed before, and I want her far more I've ever wanted anyone before. I heard myself telling her that I love her, which I know I shouldn't have, it's way too much, and far too soon, and the last thing I want to do is to scare her off, but I can't think of any other word to describe the way I feel about her.

Tiny cold hands stroking my warm back under my sweater put paid to any plans I might have had of stopping what was happening and the feel of her full, warm breasts in my hands, her nipples springing to life under my cold fingers made me stop giving a damn whether there was anybody else around, I was so lost in this cocoon of feeling and wanting which was only ever going to end one way, and her hand on the zip of my jeans took away the last crumb of doubt and what was probably my common sense. My boxers were strangling me and I'd stopped caring about where we were and the lack of privacy and the sand and how cold it was, or the absence of a condom or anything else at all really except Molly and the fact that she wanted me as much as I wanted her.

She's so small and tight and I haven't had any sort of action for a long time, since well before I met her in fact, on top of which I've just spent the last however many weeks fantasising about her, about this, imagining her in my bed, wondering what it would feel like to kiss her properly and to have her kiss me back, and then to do a hell of a lot more than that, so when she wrapped her legs round me and told me that she's on the pill, wouldn't you know it, the one time when the delaying power of a condom might have been helpful and I hadn't got any, I was a bit worried about my ability to control myself. I felt like a sixteen year old making love for the first time, very unsure as to whether I could wait out long enough for her. I actually don't give a shit anymore whether she is or isn't on the pill, or whether there is anyone else walking on this beach, as long as they don't come and join us, but I couldn't bear it if it was all too quick for her.

Molly was muttering 'please' over and over again, and I don't think she even knew she was saying it, as her breathing got more and more ragged and she began to grind herself against me which meant that I had to keep completely still and recite multiplication tables backwards otherwise it would have all been over well before she got there. The moment when she seemed to explode with pleasure nearly finished me off, and the way she shouted my name the second time, which followed so quickly it felt like a continuation of the first, did just that. I might have called out her name as the spasms of pleasure ripped me apart, I'm not sure, but the way she kept still and tightened her legs round me, I wouldn't have cared if someone had come and sat down right next to us, I'm not even sure that I'd have noticed.

I can't remember ever feeling so spent and relaxed and satisfied, and in fact, so bloody happy and reluctant to separate from the person I'd just made love to, there was no need for either of us to say anything, I just wanted to look at her, to smile into her beautiful eyes and stay as we were with her legs wrapped round me forever. I thought she was feeling the same way until I realised that she was crying, that great fat tears were pouring out of her eyes and down the sides of her face and I had no idea what was wrong. She kept saying that she didn't know either, that she wasn't unhappy, that she wasn't actually crying but I'd been so convinced that she'd enjoyed it, that in fact she'd enjoyed it as much as I had and that she hadn't been left unsatisfied or frustrated that I was bloody horrified to think that I seemed to have got it so wrong, and with her of all people. In the end she admitted that it was the exact opposite that was making her cry, that it had been the first time in her life that she hadn't faked it, which made me feel as if I was some sort of giant, more of a hero than I've ever felt before in my life, and I made her promise me that she would never, ever pretend with me.

Putting our clothes back on and trying to brush the worst of the sand off, Jesus it gets everywhere and Molly was far worse off than me, she'd got sand where you definitely never want sand, and that's not to mention those curls of hers which were full of it, and then walking back to the ferry took a very long time. We had to keep stopping, at least every couple of minutes, so that I could kiss her and tell her over and over that for me this definitely wasn't a one off, a one afternoon stand if you like, as she kept insisting that I had to tell her if it was, that we were very different, and that I've got all these women lusting after me so I could probably have anyone I wanted and that she hates queues, that she's allergic to them. I've got no idea what she's talking about, where she's got all this rubbish from, she's the only person I want, although I think I made her feel insecure when I made some stupid, tactless joke about her being one hell of a hangover cure, which she wasn't sure she found funny, so maybe it's not altogether surprising that she's finding it difficult to believe that I'm serious. Here isn't the place to sort it out though, somewhere nice and warm is, preferably where there's a nice warm comfortable bed to get into afterwards.

OGOGOGOGOG

I've got absolutely no inclination to go and sign more sodding books this morning, I just want to stay here all day, with Miss Dawes' legs wrapped round me and the happy glow of satisfaction written all over her, exactly the same glow as we had last night when we eventually made it down to the dining room. Neither of us had really eaten all day so we were bloody starving, although for some reason it was so difficult to stop smiling at each other that we couldn't wait for the dessert trolley, but found that we just needed to get back to bed. I've promised that I will behave and keep my hands to myself and will go and smile and be nice to the people who are buying my book, and she's promised that we can stay here for a couple more days, not actually in bed although that sounds like a brilliant plan to me, but here in Sandbanks, so that we can spend a bit more time together before we go back and sort out the rest of our lives.

Molly keeps telling me that talking about the rest of our lives is a bit previous, but I want her to phone her mate Cherry and set the gossip machine off and running because we're not a secret and I want everyone to know that she's with me, that we're together. I know it worries her a bit, but I don't give a shit what other people think or say, I'm just happy with the way things are and the way they're going to be.

OGOGOGOGOG

 **Author's notes: Thanks for your reviews; I hope you enjoyed this chapter. Trying not to make it repetitive meant that it took a bit longer than usual to write, and as you know I haven't done my usual and written the whole thing before I started to update, so sorry it was a bit slower.**

 **Chapter 16 includes a proposal and then into uncharted territory…**


	16. Chapter 16

"God, you're not watching that again?"

"Yeah, shut up, it's just getting to the best bit"

"Molly, how old is that film? He's got to be years older than you and you've seen it at least a hundred times"

"Yeah, but he's not old there, is he? I need something to watch when I'm doing the ironing so shut up or I'll rewind it and play this bit again"

"Actually I think he might have died last year, I sort of remember reading something about it"

"Well, he's not dead there is he? He's bleeding sexy" Molly reluctantly put the DVD of "Dirty Dancing" on pause ready to rewind and play "Hungry Eyes" again "Just think in a few months' time people will be watching a DVD about you as they do the ironing and then telling their husbands how sexy you are"

"Well it won't be me, will it? It'll be an actor playing me so it's not the same thing"

"I know he's good looking 'n that, well he'd have to be to play you, wouldn't he, but is he sexy as well?"

"I have no idea, I don't fancy him, and was that a compliment I heard there Miss Dawes? That you think I'm good looking?"

"God, you're a vain bugger, aren't you?"

Molly and I have been living together in Hampstead for about six weeks and any delusions which might have led to me being vain have long since vanished, she says she tells it how it is and doesn't 'do' compliments, but I don't always believe that I leave her as stone cold as she pretends I do. I think it's some sort of defence against the publicity and the paparazzi and the fans and all the stuff which she hates, well I'm not always that keen myself, I find it all a bit embarrassing sometimes to be honest.

We looked at places to rent in Soho to start with, Molly has always wanted to live there, but I hated them all. I would have put up with the extortionate rents, even worse than my serviced place in Wapping, and the lack of parking and the £36 a day for each of our cars for what parking there was, but I drew the line at the kerb crawlers and the punters who were potentially looking for a " _nice time_ " with the girl I love, thanks very much. So Hampstead it is, near enough to the Heath for me to go running every day and for Molly who reckons she's taking it up to get fit, well jogging anyway, although I think she does more leisurely strolling about than anything else, she hates getting all sweaty and out of breath, and I love her just the way she is

"Why not?"

"Because we're alright the way we are, aren't we?"

"Yes, but I love you, and you love me don't you? Well that's what you tell me anyway?"

"Yes, but that doesn't make any difference, does it?"

"It would make your Mum and your Nan happy, wouldn't it?"

"Maybe"

"And it would make my Mum delirious, especially if you could arrange to be pregnant at the same time"

"I ain't doing that even to make your mum happy, I aim to be the first Dawes to break the family tradition and not be knocked up when I walk down the aisle"

"Well in that case you'd better be a bit more careful about taking your pill hadn't you? or you'd better hurry up and walk down the aisle, one of the two"

"I forget sometimes, I don't do it on purpose, and anyway you could always use a condom"

"I could, but I'm not going to"

"Why not?"

"Because maybe then you'll have to say yes and marry me, instead of playing hard to get"

"Me? Playing hard to get?"

"Aren't you?"

"But it'd be all publicity and PR and all that crap and all those bloody people wanting to, I dunno, have a bit of you, it wouldn't be about us at all, and anyway, we haven't been together long enough and what happens when it all goes to shit, what happens to me?"

"What are you talking about? Of course it'll be about us and being together for years isn't going to change anything is it? And nothing's going to happen to you because nothing is going to go to shit, I love you and I want us to get married and so do you if you stop playing hard to get and stop making me beg and just say yes"

"Is that you begging?"

"Yes"

"Alright"

"Was that a 'Yes'? It was hard to tell it was so gracious"

"Do you want me to change my mind?"

I don't know why it was so important that Molly agreed to marry me. I know that she loves me and I love her and neither of us is going anywhere, but I am beginning to understand where Chantal was coming from a lot better than I did when I was with her. The need to cling on is so strong and I didn't understand how Chantal felt, not that it would have made any difference to what happened between us, I didn't love her and Molly came into my life, but I did fool myself that she felt the same way I did and I regret it now, because I know I probably made her very unhappy.

When I went to start my third book I was aware that it would bring me bang up to date and that I would have to get Molls to let me write about her, about how we'd met and got together, although I'd have had to carefully edit some of my memories. After a lot of thought I decided to try my hand at writing fiction instead, I have some story lines in mind which, to be honest, are mainly to do with army life, but Mitch and everyone else keep telling me that it's important to write about what you know best, and what you care about the most and army life is still it, well apart from my love life and that really is the most important thing in my life.

OGOGOGOGOG

She's just turned up with all her family in tow, including her Dad, not that I was afraid she wouldn't show up, but it's a bit of a relief to see her. I haven't seen her since yesterday afternoon and I'm a sad bugger because I miss her dreadfully when she's not around. She looks incredibly beautiful in this long white silky sort of dress with flowers in her hair, and I'm not sure now why we didn't go for the whole traditional church thing, except that neither of us are religious of course which might have had something to do with it. Her beaming smile has just taken away all my nerves and I can't wait to get on with it now.

OGOGOGOGOG

 _We are gathered here today to celebrate one of life's greatest moments when we recognise the worth and beauty of love and to add our best wishes to the words which will unite Molly and Charles in marriage._

 _Should there be anyone who has cause why this couple should not be united they must speak now or forever hold their peace._

 _Mollie and Charles, I would ask that you both remember to treat yourselves and each other with respect and remind yourselves what bought you together here today and that you treat each other with the tenderness and kindness that your marriage deserves. When the clouds hide the sun in your lives, as they do for everyone at one time or another, that you remember the sun is still there even though you may have lost sight of it for a moment, and if each of you take responsibility for your lives together, it will be marked by enduring love and delight. Mollie and Charles have written their own vows, Charles …._

 _Mollie, from the moment our paths crossed you surprised me, you distracted me and you challenged me in a way that no-one else ever has and I've fallen in love with you over and over again. I promise to love you even when you refuse to turn off that DVD and to understand you when you get mad at me for something I did in a dream. I promise to cherish you and care for you in sickness and in health, even when the sickness is because you've just seen your credit card bill or you've got another parking ticket and I promise to stay with you for the rest of our lives and to love you with all my heart the way I do today. I promise to treasure you and keep you warm when it's cold and windy and to stand in the way when the sun gets too hot. I know you are my best friend and the best thing that ever happened to me, and I can't believe I'm marrying my best friend today._

 _Charles, I promise to be patient and honest and kind, to be your friend and lover and to always remember the promises that we make today. I promise to love and cherish you in sickness and in health, even when the sickness is self-inflicted because you've been out with your army mates and I promise to be with you when things are good and bad and wherever we go I'll always be there holding your hand and telling you that I love you. I know you're my best friend and the best thing that ever happened to me and I promise not to get mad at you when you won't give me the remote. I promise I'll be true to you and I'll share the most beautiful moments of my life with you, and someday I might even let you win an argument._

 _Mollie, with this ring I take you as my wife for as long as we both shall live._

 _Charles, with this ring I take you as my husband for as long as we both shall live._

 _Mollie and Charles, in as much as the two of you have consented to be married and have promised your love for each other by your vows and the giving and receiving of the rings I declare you to be husband and wife together, Congratulations, Charles, you may kiss your wife._

So that's it, over, and I couldn't be happier although the new Mrs. James has just bollocked me for mentioning the DVD like that, said I made it sound as though she was watching porn and for telling everyone about her dreams, oh and that it was a good thing I never mentioned getting rid of the bleeding sand as well as the cold and the wind. I must admit she has a point, I never thought of it!

It's great to see the lads here, Molly insisted that I invite them, but I was a bit unsure whether it would make me feel very, well I suppose, regretful and start me longing again for a life that's no longer mine, but I was just very pleased to see them and incredibly proud to introduce the most important person in my life, my wife, to such an important group of people from my past. Mind you, I hope they stay reasonably sober and remember that this is supposed to be a family celebration, and not a 2 section piss up like the old days. Of course, if they get out of hand I can always set Molly on them, I remember how she dealt with the drunks on the train, Christ, the lads wouldn't know what had hit them. She's a bit worried about her Dad getting involved in one of their drinking games, but I've had a word with Kinders, and it's strange but he still talks to me as though I'm his Captain, his CO, so I suppose old habits die very hard, anyway, he's promised to keep an eye out. They are apparently still really happy to find themselves at the heart of my first book and even Mansfield Mike has forgiven me for some of my more unflattering descriptions and observations.

There were a fair few photographers outside the Registry Office and Molly tells me that one of the pushiest was her 'ex' Steve. I suppose I should have expected it really and that she would smile quite nicely at him, although I wanted to deck him and would have had no conscience at all about getting the lads to beat him to a pulp. Bloody ridiculous, it would have ruined the day for everyone and then I would more than likely be divorced before tea, but I can't forget that he tried his best to cause trouble between us not so long ago or that he owes Molly pots of money, but she doesn't seem to care anymore. Her mate Cherry is busy getting pissed with her sister Bella, and they are both flirting with the lads, which is okay for Cherry, she's single, but I need to just drop a little word about Bella having a husband, even though he hasn't got here from work yet, because we don't want a row, although Nan says it's not a proper wedding without a punch up. I feel a bit sorry for her other sister Jade, although her Mum and Nan are making sure she's okay and my Mum is ecstatic, so bloody happy that I'm a bit scared she's going to ask Molly whether she's pregnant yet and if not, why not? I hate to think of the reply she might get and you never can tell with Molly. Looking at Archie and Warren, Molly's nephews, I can see why Mum's so keen, but Molly is adamant that she's not ready yet, so Mum will just have to wait out for a bit longer.

We're going to the States in a few days for our official honeymoon, but we're off in a few minutes to the Studland Bay Hotel for a couple of nights, so that we can go for a long nostalgic walk on the beach and maybe the sand dunes. It won't be like the last time we were there, its mid-summer so it'll probably still be hot and sunny when we arrive and the place will be stuffed with holidaymakers, and dog walkers and fishermen and local teenagers getting drunk, but you never know your luck, it might rain so that we get the place to ourselves. Molly has already told me that she might have said in her vows that she didn't mind me getting pissed with the lads, but she certainly didn't mean today and that she has definite plans for me later. God, I do love her and I can't believe how lucky I am or how much she's changed my life in such a short time.

The End

 **Author's note: Thank you for your support and the lovely comments you made, I hope you enjoyed this visit to their wedding.**


End file.
